Latin American NGOs’ perceptions of cross-scale and cross-actor interactions in polycentric climate governance

The governance of climate change has increasingly been characterized as polycentric, with non-state actors playing particularly influential roles as climate intermediaries, linking together different types of actors and scales of governance. Yet, there has been limited empirical analysis of climate intermediaries within polycentric climate governance systems – a gap this study seeks to address. We examine how Latin American non-governmental organizations experience and navigate polycentric climate governance by analysing their roles as climate intermediaries. Drawing on the Ecology of Games framework, we analysed the experiences of 22 non-governmental organizations across 14 Latin American countries to examine agency within polycentric climate governance systems. Our findings reveal that Latin American non-governmental organizations perceive themselves as climate intermediaries, actively connecting diverse actor types including government agencies, international organizations, local communities, and private sector entities across multiple governance scales from local to international levels. In evaluating their relationships with other governance actors, these organizations emphasize three critical dimensions: learning through knowledge exchange and capacity building, coordination through collaborative planning and resource sharing, and equity and fairness in decision-making processes and outcome distribution. These findings enhance our understandings of how Latin American non-governmental organizations experience the increasingly polycentric landscape of climate governance, contributing to the transnational advocacy literature while demonstrating the analytical value of the Ecology of Games framework for actor-centred analysis of polycentric climate governance systems.