Research: Under 10% of Climate Aid Reaching Poorest

Less than 10 percent of funds spent to help poorer communities adapt to climate change impacts and adopt clean energy are reaching the people most in need of the money, finance researchers say.

In part, that is because international climate funds, under pressure to get donated funds into action, are opting to work with development banks and other big international agencies that can quickly spend millions - rather than with smaller-scale local governments and projects, said researchers at the London-based International Institute for Environmental and Development (IIED).

Weak local ability to design and evaluate projects, and to fill out complicated forms to access money are another problem, the report said, as is the smaller scale of local projects, as vetting each one takes more time.

Another obstacle is the lack of a specific target in the Paris Agreement on climate change to spend more finance at the local level, the researchers said in a report released this week.

“Understanding how to get money where it matters is the challenge of the moment,” said Clare Shakya, climate change director at IIED and one of the report’s authors.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-finance-poor-idUSKBN16A1BV

Bob Ryskamp

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