Overseas Development Institute paper examining climate finance to developing countries, with a focus on Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
International climate change adaptation funding is, at its heart, a question of climate justice. For instance, subsistence farmers in Africa have contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, yet their livelihoods, health and well-being are drastically threatened by climate change impacts. Despite this injustice, those in the international community that bare most of the responsibility for emissions are failing to adequately finance and deliver the adaptive capacities of such vulnerable people and communities.
Drawing on Overseas Development Institute-led research from three sub-Saharan African countries - Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda - this paper highlights the significant public expenditure on adaptation that is taking place through national budgets at a considerable burden on a limited resource base. The paper examines how much money is currently committed domestically, through which departments the money is delivered, the purpose behind the expenditure, and how effectively the climate fund-flows are managed. The key messages that emerge from the report include that:
Significant public expenditure on adapting to climate change is taking place through national budgets in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Despite this, in all three countries there appears to be major funding gaps between what is available, and that which is deemed necessary by each country’s climate change strategy.
In Ethiopia and Uganda, the overwhelming majority of this expenditure is being funded domestically.
International support to assist such countries adapt to climate change, as called for under the UNFCCC, has not been forthcoming at the scale necessary.
International support should, at a minimum, match the level of domestic public spending relevant to climate change in the most vulnerable countries.
Additionally, the authors note that securing a deal on adaptation is critical to the prospects of the 2015 UNFCCC summit. While international media attention has tended to focus on mitigation and bargaining between developed countries and the major emerging markets, for many of the poorest and most vulnerable countries action on adaptation is key.