Within the Warsaw International Mechanism to address Loss and Damage, the Santiago Network has a critical role in strengthening technical assistance to developing countries and frontline communities on approaches to address loss and damage. Its mandate goes beyond facilitating access to technical expertise from a wider network of organisations and experts. The Santiago Network must also ensure that developing countries and vulnerable communities have direct access to the technical assistance (TA) they need through country-owned, and where appropriate, community-owned approaches that are responsive to their particular needs, priorities, and circumstances. The Santiago Network responds to the guidance provided by the COP and CMA through its Advisory Board, which serves as the supreme organ of its secretariat, hosted at UNDRR/UNOPS, with headquarters in Geneva. To date , progress has been made in terms of approving the guidelines for organisations, which results in more than 100 members; the approval of the guidelines for requesting TA for parties and communities, for which twenty TA requests have been submitted, and one request has been matched and is under implementation; the approval of the results framework of the SN, the resource mobilisation strategy, and the continuation of the coherent approach with both the Excom and the FRLD secretariat to maximise impact and reduce duplication.
As the 7th meeting of the Advisory Board is scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan, from the 29th September to the 1st October 2026, the LDYC has clear expectations and demands, as the meeting is coming right after the Excom and FRLD B8, without omitting that the negative impacts of climate change are exacerbated, which leads to the visibility of the gap between the action needed and the means of implementation accessible for developing countries and frontline communities. The Santiago Network must therefore move decisively from establishing its institutional architecture towards delivering accessible, timely and high-quality technical assistance on the ground. The LDYC urges the board to consider the following priorities for its upcoming session and to ensure a meaningful, measurable and community-centred implementation.
- Responding to TA requests should be a high priority, and it should be done in a fair, equitable, and expedited manner. To date, of approximately 40 requests received, only 16 have started implementation, with only 3 in the implementation phase and one concluded. The technical assistance request process should be simplified, sped up, and made more user-friendly for communities that may have limited institutional capacity to navigate complex application procedures.
- The minimum percentage of the TA funded directly to the communities should deliver clear, measurable, and time-bound commitments that adopt transparent, accountable criteria to measure the impact of the minimum percentage, to ensure that the frontline communities have access to the TA in the design of the approach to address loss and damage in accordance with their community, local and national circumstances, as appropriate.
- The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework should not only measure the number of TA requests received and completed, but it should also measure the quality of the TA, especially within the broader scope of supporting developing countries and frontline communities to access the means of implementation for approaches to address loss and damage (SN, Excom, FRLD) in a coherent approach on the local, national and regional level.
- The Gender and Inclusion Action Plan should set out clear and measurable commitments that ensure women, youth, indigenous and local communities, persons with disabilities and other marginalised communities are integrated within the governance of the SN, the membership of the SN, the request for the TA, the implementation of the TA and the result measurement framework to ensure their meaningful role beyond just a number and representation.
- The ToR of the regular report on loss and damage should be adopted. The global report should focus on highlighting the gaps in action and support accessible to developing countries and frontline communities facing the adverse impact of climate change, set a clear approach for coherence, complementarity and collaboration between the Excom, SN and FRLD at the national and local levels, and clarify the scale of the need to address loss and damage to strengthen the clear targets of the constituted bodies on loss and damage in a manner that meets the need on the ground.
- The report on activities should clearly set out the activities, approaches, and measures put forward in response to the third review of the Warsaw International Mechanism, especially those relevant to the Santiago Network.
Mobilising resources for the SN is essential, and this requires a reliable and easily accessible funding source to provide technical assistance to developing nations and frontline communities, to ensure that countries and communities can benefit from such support, access to technical assistance should be included in a toolkit that guarantees inclusivity for all, with the SN secretariat responsible for tracking and reporting on the quantity of technical assistance available to communities. In addition, efforts should be made to facilitate OBENS registration from the Global South and to enhance the capabilities of registered members.