Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment

The  Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance is a collaboration between humanitarian, NGO, research and private sector partners, working to build resilience to climate hazards in rural and urban contexts.   

Formerly the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance, the Alliance has over a decade of experience in generating evidence of communities’ current levels of climate resilience and identifying appropriate solutions. Since 2018, the Grantham Research institute has contributed leading expertise in climate resilience research and policy to support the Alliance’s mission (see more below). 

Through long-term community programmes, cutting-edge research and stakeholder influencing, the Alliance strives to deliver systemic change at scale and realise its vision of a world in which communities are more resilient to climate hazards and able to thrive.  

By 2027, alongside like-minded organisations, the Alliance aspires to positively impact 5.5 million people vulnerable to climate change, expanding this number to 70 million by 2035.  The Alliance will: 

Enhance and increase the resilience of urban and rural communities to climate hazards

Promote the widespread adoption of good practice in climate resilience

Increase the funding available for communities to improve their climate resilience

Improve the policy environment for building community resilience to climate hazards

The Alliance is working to achieve its objectives long-term by:

🗣 Delivering community-centred programmes

📝 Conducting evidence-based research

📩 Sharing knowledge

🤝 Influencing stakeholders on resilience to climate hazards

The Grantham Research Institute’s role  

Policy contribution – led by Anna Beswick

The Institute co-leads the Alliance Adaptation Governance Theme in partnership with Mercy Corps and Concern Worldwide. We are working with Alliance country teams to influence effective government adaptation policy and practice.

Alliance Country programmes and global influencing leads are working to:

Influence effective policies, strategies and plans

Increase access to large quantities of high-quality, adaptation finance (in this context high quality finance refers predominantly to grant based finance).

Enhance technical expertise and capacity

Improve community and multistakeholder participation in adaptation planning and decision making

The Adaptation Governance Theme, established in 2024, supports progress with these priorities.

The Grantham Research Institute worked with Mercy Corps and Concern to co-design the Theme with Alliance country programmes. Together we identified the topics and priorities that need to be addressed to progress adaptation governance across the Alliance. Co-design remains central to the design and operation of the Theme, with regular events and meetings held to seek feedback and identify priorities across the Alliance.

In 2024 policy analysis was identified as a priority. Policy analysis involves investigating whether existing policies are being implemented, assessing the content of policies and whether they are making a difference. To support this work, we co-developed a Policy Analysis Guide for the Alliance and ran a policy analysis learning event, both of which were supported and informed by crucial input from Mercy Corps and Concern.

Over 2025–27, the Grantham Research Institute will continue to develop resources and support progress in a variety of Adaptation Governance Theme priorities. Our focus for 2025 is the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policy and will include an in-depth case study with the Mercy Corps Jordan team.

Research contribution – led by Sara Mehryar

The Grantham Research Institute’s research for the Alliance focuses on two main topics:

Adaptation governance: This research is analysing global trends in adaptation legislation, identifying best practice, persistent gaps and enabling conditions to strengthen adaptation policies across countries. The project is being conducted in collaboration with the Institute’s Climate Change Laws of the World project and IFRC’s Disaster Law, building on our previous work on flood risk, resilience governance, and legislation. After developing a systematic framework for analysing national adaptation policies, we conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of policies in an initial set of around 30 countries, including those within the Alliance. This is complemented by in-depth case studies on multi-scale adaptation governance and implementation. We aim to expand the geographic coverage and scope of our analysis based on the outcomes of the initial round.

Adaptation to multi-hazards: This research focuses on enhancing resilience to multiple climate hazards by identifying adaptation actions that maximise co-benefits and minimise unintended consequences of action. It builds on the Institute’s previous work on analysing interdependencies, co-benefits, unintended consequences and the ‘triple dividend’ of resilience. The study’s tools and methods include the Climate Resilience Measurement for Communities (CRMC) tool, developed by the Alliance, as well as system mapping and network analysis to map interactions between components of climate resilience. This will help identify leverage points and interdependencies for effective adaptation strategies with maximum co-benefits and minimal unintended consequences. The approach will be piloted in selected Alliance countries to test its effectiveness in real-world adaptation planning.

Influencing (Swenja Surminski, Anna Beswick, Sara Mehryar and colleagues from across the Institute)

Staff from across the Grantham Research Institute in high-profile global policy roles generously contribute their time and expertise to ensure that the Alliance benefits from insights on topics such as adaptation indicators and climate finance.

The Alliance team at the Institute proactively develops influencing opportunities ranging from running sessions featuring Alliance research at major academic and practice conferences to ensuring that the work of the Alliance is included in engagement with senior leaders and high-profile public and private sector groups and networks.