Climate Resilience Project Team Deploys in Coquimbo

Between March 17 and 21, the “Strengthening Capacities and Civic Participation for Climate-Resilient Communities in Chile” project team made its first visit to the Coquimbo municipality, located in the country’s Fourth Region, 460 kilometers north of Santiago. Funded by Columbia World Projects, the initiative is supporting Chilean municipalities in developing and implementing Community Climate Action Plans (PACC) in line with the 2022 Climate Change Framework Law.

The team traveling to Coquimbo included project leader Antonia Samur from Columbia’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP); Carla Magri from the Santiago Center; Javiera Gárate, Javier Romero, and Rodolfo Sapiains from Universidad de Chile’s Center for Climate Science and Resilience (CR2); Gemita Navarrete and Danilo Miranda from the Institute for Disaster Resilience (Itrend); and Hugo Sarmiento, Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP. On arrival, they were welcomed by Carolin Mondaca and Paula Bustamante from the Environmental Management Department of the municipality’s Environmental Management and Zoonosis Direction, who serve as the project’s local counterparts.

Throughout the week, the team held community climate change workshops and participatory risk mapping exercises in Tongoy and Coquimbo, as well as a citizen participation workshop for municipal officials. This workshop, led by Rodolfo Sapiains and the CR2 team, provided techniques for organizing and conducting participatory sessions.

Danilo Miranda, in collaboration with Antonia Samur, led the climate change workshops. During these sessions, key concepts such as climate change, threat, exposure, vulnerability, risk, disaster, and resilience were defined. Participants explored the link between socio-natural disasters and climate change, discussing approaches through adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk management. Practical group exercises helped identify specific conditions making the community susceptible to extreme events and revealed its main threats, weaknesses, capacities, existing measures, and potential strategies to reduce risks.

The activities were very well received, drawing over 100 participants, including residents from Coquimbo, Tongoy, and Guanaqueros, neighborhood representatives, environmental organizations, senior groups, academic institutions, private sector members, and public officials.

The team also conducted a dozen interviews with key figures in public service, academia, and civil society, including urban planners, community leaders, and officials from the Ministries of Housing and Urbanism and Environment of the Coquimbo Region, as well as municipal representatives from the departments of environmental management, disaster risk management, planning, and community development.

In the first week of April, the team will return to the field for a second visit to the municipality of Alto del Carmen in Chile’s Third Region, where similar workshops will be conducted.