Government representatives, private sector leaders, and civil society members are gathering this week and next in Baku (Azerbaijan) for COP29. Climate finance is at the forefront of discussions, as COP29 will determine the shape and scope of climate finance post-2025. At a meeting ahead of COP29, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed for the first time that the scale of need was in the trillions of dollars, according to presidency chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev. However, he emphasised that a realistic target for public sector funding and mobilisation would be in the ‘hundreds of billions’.
While numbers definitely matter, it is also important to ask the question: who is this money for? After all, what is being negotiated in Baku is not just about the amount of money, it’s about looking at a transformation of international financial architecture for climate.
As the world grapples with the growing climate crisis, fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) are being left out in the cold. In 2022, the ten most fragile states received a mere $269 million in climate adaptation financing—less than 1% of total global flows. These communities have done the least to cause climate change but they suffer from its worst consequences, from failing crops to increase in violent conflict over water. It is also clear that in many contexts, conflict is threatening to sideline climate priorities.
There is a decades-long desire in the climate world to invest at scale, given the urgency to address the climate crisis. Thus far, this has resulted in big ticket investments in infrastructure projects like power grids and renewable energy. Investments at scale in local communities with human-centred solutions have been sparse.
This may reflect a preference to work with governments for both convenience and the ability to scale. Yet, in many conflict-affected places, governments may lack capacity and willingness to scale locally led climate solutions, may face significant governance and corruption challenges, or may not prioritise geographic areas which are most impacted by climate change.
In the peacebuilding world, we have realised that the best entry point for making sustainable change in conflict-affected communities may be at the local level. However, in the climate space, there is a dismal record of climate financing reaching local civil society in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Between 2014 and 2021, extremely fragile states received $2.1 per person in climate finance compared with $161.7 for those in non-fragile circumstances.
How can we bridge the need for scale and accessibility of climate funding to local NGOs? How can climate funds reach local communities, civil society, and local actors across the world at scale? Peacebuilders have spent decades trying to untangle the complexities of foreign assistance funding and decolonizing aid and there are many examples of how we’ve created structures that support communities and locally-driven solutions to problems.
For example, over the past two years, through the SHE WINS project, Search for Common Ground has disbursed over $2.5 million in small grants to women’s organisations in Cameroon, CAR, DR Congo, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, as well as through a rapid response fund in 78 conflict-affected countries. These grants, typically ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, empower local women’s groups to lead grassroots movements, pressure local authorities, and build their capacity for managing funds. Search supported indigenous women in Guatemala during recent elections and funded women’s groups in rural CAR to prevent gender-based violence. While labour-intensive, this model strengthens local resilience and shows significant impact with small investments.
So, there are examples we can build on. There are local organisations in these fragile states who are capable of impactful integrated programming that leads not only to successful climate change adaptation, but also to strengthen social cohesion and peace. Moreover, due to their intimate knowledge of the conflict context and ability for conflict-sensitive programming, their programmes will be better adapted to local conditions, and the financial risk of losing the investment decreases.
Yet these organisations cannot access most types of climate funding. Access is restricted either because the funds are reserved for governments, the amounts are too large or the administrative burden in terms of time needed for accreditation and reporting is simply too large to handle for an organisation with a handful of staff. The ideal type of funding for grassroots civil society organisations in fragile states is small scale, risk tolerant, fast, and directly accessible, without having to pass through their governments (or an international intermediary).
Now is the time to ensure that a greater and more equitable proportion of climate finance is directed to FCAS, particularly for adaptation efforts in the negotiations around the transformation of the international finance architecture for climate.
We have learned that working through big national or international level fora is not enough because the conversations in the hallways of a conference centre in Baku need to have an impact on the streets of Erbil or Bukavu. The financing of national governments and big climate infrastructure is crucial; but it needs to be accompanied by financing a local civil society-led climate resilience movement, which taken together can also deliver at scale, especially in conflict affected societies. Access to climate finance must be made easier for the communities that need it most, and policymakers and climate finance instruments at this COP should make that commitment.