Climate Risk Management (Jan 2022)
Reviewing the nature and pitfalls of multilateral adaptation finance for small island developing states
Abstract
Small island developing states (SIDS) are recognized as being among the most vulnerable countries to climate change—many are highly exposed and sensitive to, inter alia, sea-level rise and increased intensity storms, yet often lack the human and financial resources needed for successful and/or effective adaptation. The international community has responded to SIDS’ precarious situation, in part, by establishing a suite of multilateral funding mechanisms to help finance costly adaptation projects and programs. However, to date, there has been a mismatch between the level of international climate finance mobilized and the scale of adaptation that is needed in SIDS. This paper reviews the relevant academic and policy literatures to provide a system-wide diagnosis of the institutional and conceptual problems plaguing adaptation-specific multilateral climate funds, which are often addressed in isolation. We show that, following the establishment of the Global Environment Facility, many multilateral climate funds have been rife with administrative issues, creating barriers to access for particularly vulnerable countries. The funding that SIDS do receive is often insufficient to meet the costs of adaptation, and funding allocations are demonstrably skewed amongst SIDS and amongst types of adaptation projects and programs funded. In concluding, we propose reorienting multilateral adaptation finance towards resilience as a means of improving the governance of international adaptation finance and increasing access for SIDS and other particularly vulnerable countries.
