CoRe's learning, monitoring, and evaluation approaches are helping make systems change more visible and actionable. Drawing on ongoing work with civil society coalitions in Guatemala, this piece shows how tracking both external disruption and internal network strength can support durable, bottom-up transformation.
Read MoreAt the 2025 Global Land Forum in Bogotá, two threads emerged for advancing equitable land reform and the intersecting polycrises of our time: strengthening Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ leadership in systems transformation, and deepening landscape approaches that connect land governance with climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods.
Read MoreMiscommunication threatens any effort to address environmental governance challenges. Paying attention to different perspectives through active listening can lay the groundwork for effective collaboration.
Read MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how the world works, communicates, and collaborates. The lockdown heightens problems of environmental degradation, environmental justice, and climate change adaptation. When Collaborating for Resilience and the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) found their joint convening in Bhubaneswar, Odisha postponed, we had to strategically adapt. An interactive Virtual Commons Exchange was convened instead – the first of its kind for FES and its partners. The Exchange brought together 45 organizations from some of the most remote locations across eight states of India to strengthen the “Promise of Commons” initiative spearheaded by FES. What lessons emerged, both in the event design and priorities for action?
Read MoreDialogue is difficult. Listening deeply to people with radically different perspectives, searching for solutions that go beyond convention, taking responsibility for change rather than passing it off to others—none of these are easy. Because our work is inherently tough, CoRe tends to attract people whose experiences working with communities facing deep inequalities give them reason to persevere. “Where does CoRe come from?” is a question I’m asked frequently now.
Read MoreRehabilitating degraded lands, restoring fisheries, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions all demand changes by actors at multiple scales; and power, profit, and livelihoods are at stake. Blake Ratner of Collaborating for Resilience recounts his experiences of pursuing big, systemic change when people don’t agree what the problem is, or how to solve it.
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