Climate and nature strategy built from the ground up
iKoko helps funders, institutions and locally-rooted organisations design the strategy, finance and learning that move climate adaptation and nature-systems work to where it’s needed most — led by the people closest to the challenge.​
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iKoko is a climate and nature-systems strategy practice. We work at the meeting point of human development and natural systems, helping the institutions that fund and deliver climate action to design programmes, finance and learning that are genuinely inclusive, locally-led, and empowering.
At the heart of our work is inclusive development finance — shaping the strategies and finance stacks that channel concessional, public and private capital toward adaptation, resilience and nature, and toward the communities and local institutions too often left at the edges.
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Gender equality and social inclusion run through everything we do. We start from a simple conviction: the best answers are usually already close to the problem. Our job is to help surface them, structure them, and resource them.
Together, let 's tell the story of
“the more beautiful world our heart's know is possible”
Charles Eisenstein
Services
Strategy & Programme Design
We help funders and institutions turn intent into strategy that can actually be delivered and financed — country and portfolio strategies, programme and intervention design, and theories of change. Throughout, we design for adaptation outcomes and for local ownership from the first decision rather than the last.
Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL)
We design MEL frameworks and theories of change, and run mid-term and terminal evaluations that are honest, usable, and oriented to the next decision rather than the filing cabinet. We treat lived experience as evidence — building learning processes that bring the people closest to a programme into making sense of whether, and for whom, it actually worked.
Knowledge & Story Telling
We turn what's learned into knowledge that helps a sector move: technical guidance, practical frameworks, and impact narratives grounded in real practice. Clear, credible, and built to shift how funders and practitioners think and act — not to sit unread.
What's our story
Mikhael Gerhard
I'm Mikhael — a climate and development strategist based in Cape Town, working at the intersection of human development and natural systems. With a master's in environmental and sustainable development law and policy, and a decade as a researcher and advisor across multi-level climate governance, climate finance, carbon markets, and gender equality and social inclusion, I've spent my career on one question: how do we get climate action — and the finance behind it — to actually reach the people and places that need it most?
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The honest answer is that the mindsets that built the crisis won't be the ones to resolve it, and that the best ideas are usually already close to the problem. My work is to help funders and institutions surface those ideas and turn them into strategy, finance and learning that hold up in the real world. I'm a grounded idealist: convinced a more inclusive, more resilient world is possible, and equally convinced it's built one practical, well-designed step at a time.
What's your story?
Let us empower your team, organisation, or stakeholders to gather together in the spirit of Ubuntu and find the threads to weave together a new narrative of possibility.
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Whether programme design, strategy development, reflection and learning, needs assessment, intervention identification, study tours, leadership develop or team building, we create immersive, participatory experiences that spark insight, foster collaboration, and unlock collective intelligence—guiding you toward meaningful action and transformative impact.