On Our Terms: Community-Driven Climate & Adaptation Data Collaboration

​As climate shocks intensify, frontline communities are generating critical data (and knowledge) —about risks, solutions, and lived realities. Too often, that lived experience-based insight is siloed, fragmented, or extracted without consent or accountability.

​This session asks a simple, urgent question: What if communities owned, governed, and shared their climate and adaptation data on their own terms?

​I’m co-developing a Community-Driven Data Collaboration Toolkit with the Obama Leaders Network to help local leaders set up fair, transparent, and impactful data partnerships. The toolkit includes:

• ​Community data agreements that protect sovereignty and consent

• ​Collaboration workflows that rebalance power across partners

• ​Stewardship models that make data actionable for resilience planning

​What we’ll do:

• ​Surface real challenges around access, trust, and equity

• ​Compare examples of “good” vs. “bad” data collaborations

• ​Co-create principles to inform and test the Toolkit

​Who should join: City staff, NGOs, researchers, and community organizers grappling with trust, access, and power in climate data—and ready to help shape a rights-respecting resource communities can use to negotiate better partnerships and defend digital rights.