Climate finance is one of the foundations of negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Global warming (UNFCCC) – money both from private and public sources in lowering emissions and increase resilience against the negative impacts of climate change.
UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and also the Paris Agreement required financial help from Parties with increased financial resources to ones that are less endowed and much more vulnerable.
A study conducted by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) suggested that under 10 percent of funds committed under different global climate financing windows are being spent to help marginalized communities adapt to global warming impacts and adopt clean energy.
So, the question is why the speed of climate finance reaching the vulnerable people most looking for the cash – to cope with impacts such as more heatwaves, rising sea levels, more powerful cyclones or droughts – is not satisfactory and what ought to be done to be able to mitigate this.
During the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) parties restated the target of mobilizing $100 billion annually in climate finance by 2023 and decided to set a more ambitious target by 2025.
A significant portion of these funds is supposed to flow with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) focusing on climate change adaptation in developing countries.
To become more good at helping poor communities in tackling the adverse impacts of climate change and building resilience, it is crucial the global climate funds get to the local level to reduce the vulnerabilities of real affected people.
It can also be vital that you engage local community to increase the opportunities of mitigation and adaptation actions.
From project planning to implementation; and through the monitoring and evaluation stage the active involvement of local institutions can make sure that local needs are addressed properly thus, maximise the advantages of climate finance.
Over the last decade, Bangladesh makes progress, specifically in developing and implementing strategies and frameworks, identifying priorities and establishing institutional arrangements using the support of development partners, UN and other agencies to access and mobilise climate fund.
But to maximise the effectiveness of climate finance reaching probably the most vulnerable communities and also have the most possible impact in enabling climate compatible development, it is important to introduce more participatory bottom-up approach using the engagement of local governments and native people in the work planning, budgeting, and implementation process.
Despite having several climate change funding instruments under UNFCCC addressing the significance of local institutions and communities clear, to date there is no global target of local level finance.
Establishment of a baseline of local level finance might be beneficial in this regard to set a target.
Moreover, the funding structure is essential to make it more effective to reach the vulnerable community.
The policies need to be revised in order to increase the readiness to undertake risks for such local initiatives, increase flexibility on co-financing and employ more appropriate measurement frameworks which are highly relevant to local settings.
To improve the delivery of climate finance at local level and make it more efficient, it is important to engage municipality, line departments, communities, NGOs and other Civil Society Organisations in the planning and budgeting process of climate initiatives for creating greater scope to reply to specific local vulnerabilities.
Promoting local institutions to consider transparent and comprehensive budgeting can also contribute significantly to maximising the results of climate finance at local level.
The major barriers preventing finance from reaching local neighborhoods include, the absence of specific priorities (e.g. policy gaps), some UN and multilateral agencies being less in a position to finance small-scale projects directly to local institutions and concerns over the capacity of local communities in mobilising considerable amounts of finance.
Lack of capacity of local government institutions and NGOs to design and evaluate projects and also the complicated application to access climate finance is yet another problem, as a result, they have to depend on other channeling institutions.
The present roller financing mechanisms are important for many mitigation and adaptation actions because of having robust monitoring and evaluation protocols that assess the impacts of climate interventions which serve as a basis to judge the effectiveness and efficiency of climate related expenditures.
But this method also needs to facilitate the engagement of local level for additional efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability benefits.
It is important to interact local beneficiaries and vulnerable communities from planning to implementation phases, promote local private sector entities – specifically Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) or Small , medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), build local-level capacity to access and manage climate finance resources.
Policymakers, researchers, development partners, and practitioners may come forward in advocating for the climate finance to be available which are more vulnerable groups and integrating localised adaptation measures to be prioritised at policy level.
