Mobilising Finance for Climate Action and Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure in Developing Countries

A fundamental obstacle all cities, especially those in developing countries, must overcome on the path to a low-emissions and climate-resilient future is the lack of capital and access to finance. International adaptation finance flows to developing countries remain between five and ten times lower than the estimated needs, and the gap is widening. As the impacts of climate change intensify, the developing world urgently needs financial mechanisms to mobilise funds to help vulnerable countries and communities adapt and build disaster-resilient infrastructure.

The G20 can play an important role in addressing this challenge and help catalyse finance for climate action in developing countries. This policy brief recommends a multipronged approach for developing countries to finance their adaptation, mitigation, and resilience actions by (a) having access to finance sources, (b) utilising existing development budgets more effectively through tagging, and (c) creating a resilience lab at the most relevant tier of administration (national/sub-national) to facilitate the design and rollout of blended financing mechanisms for funding adaptation actions.