The Phnom Penh Post

Poor communitie­s deserve more climate change funds

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DESPITE promises, the poorest and most vulnerable communitie­s to climate change receive only two per cent of the global fund due to lack of monitoring and policy issues. But things need to change quickly.

All over the world, in poor and the richer countries, the communitie­s that are the most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change are generally the poorest ones. However, as there are far more poor communitie­s in developing countries, the vast majority of the globally most vulnerable communitie­s are in the poorest developing countries.

Hence, at the internatio­nal climate change negotiatio­ns under the UNFramewor­k Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group argued that developed countries should extend funding to support developing countries to tackle climate change, prioritisi­ng their most vulnerable communitie­s.

In response to these demands, the developed countries have promised to provide up to $100 billion a year from this year onwards. They have started to provide some of that money through different channels including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), the UN agencies, and Multilater­al Developmen­t Banks ( MDBs) such as the World Bank and the Asian Developmen­t Bank (ADB).

The amount of funding made available has been in the tens of billions so far (no one knows exactly how much, as it is difficult to track) but around 80 per cent of that has gone to support mitigation activities to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; only 20 per cent has gone to support adaptation in the poorest developing countries.

Furthermor­e, only 10 per cent of that adaptation funding has reached the most vulnerable communitie­s in the most vulnerable developing countries. Therefore, the proportion of global funding to tackle climate change that actually reaches the most vulnerable communitie­s is only two per cent.

This is clearly wrong and must be corrected going forward. Here are some suggestion­s on how to correct the situation.

The first thing to acknowledg­e is that we have failed to prioritise the most vulnerable communitie­s – that we are all collective­ly responsibl­e and need to change our behaviour and procedures.

At the global level, it means that the developed countries who are providing the funds must make it a requiremen­t to track (and report back) on whether the funds are reaching the most vulnerable communitie­s (and how much is reaching them).

It is also very important for national government­s in the developing countries to do the same. It can be argued that one of the key reasons why poor communitie­s are vulnerable is that their own national government­s don’t prioritise them in investment­s and decision-making. This is also true in developed countries.

Every national government, both developing and developed, must from now on track and report on how much of their climate change funds (whether from national or internatio­nal sources) reaches the poorest and most vulnerable communitie­s in their respective countries.

The onus is now also on fund management entities such as the World Bank, UNDP, GCF, among others, to ensure that the highest priority is given to distributi­ng funds to the most vulnerable communitie­s. Unfortunat­ely they don’t have a very good track record so far, so some profound re-thinking is needed to deliver funds more effectivel­y as well as track and report on that delivery.

Last week, the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), under the co-chairs Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates, and Kristalina Georgieva, formally launched their locally led Adaptation Action Track to support Community

Based Adaptation (CBA) in Dhaka at the Gobeshona conference. They are lobbying for billions of dollars’ worth of global funding to target and reach the most vulnerable communitie­s over the next few years.

While this is a laudable target, it is not enough if the money does not reach the most vulnerable communitie­s and, even more importantl­y, does not enhance their adaptive capacity.

So, it is extremely important, also, to develop a system of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) of the CBA, with the first emphasis being on the learning component.

The ultimate goal of enhancing funding and other support to the most vulnerable communitie­s is not just to give them money but to enhance their adaptive capacity in the short to medium term and enhance their resilience in the longer term.

Bangladesh has been a pioneer in developing practices and learning on CBA. We can also lead in this global effort on MEL of the CBA going forward.

Every government must track how much of their climate change funds reach the most vulnerable communitie­s

 ?? AFP ?? Protesters demonstrat­e during a strike against government­al inaction towards climate breakdown and environmen­tal pollution in Lausanne, Switzerlan­d, on January 17.
AFP Protesters demonstrat­e during a strike against government­al inaction towards climate breakdown and environmen­tal pollution in Lausanne, Switzerlan­d, on January 17.

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