What is needed to take climate finance to scale?
by Emily Boone
This week world leaders, advocates, and stakeholders from almost 200 countries came together in Doha for the second week of the annual UNFCC climate negotiations. Among the top priorities this year were climate finance and agriculture, both issues under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) radar.
Though it appears this round of negotiations will not yield a formal work programme on agriculture as hoped, the activities, discussions, and knowledge sharing that takes place in parallel to the formal negotiations at Doha are demonstrative of the efforts and commitments already working to address these policy concerns. One of these all-day events being the Agriculture, Landscapes and Livelihoods Day (ALL5). The roundtable discussion "Making Climate Finance work for the poor", was hosted in partnership by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), CARE International, and CCAFS.
Read more: Helping smallholder farmers mitigate climate change
Adaptation finance has raised many expectations to deliver benefits to smallholder farmers in developing countries but experience so far has been limited with few direct benefits to farmers.
The presenters made the case that climate finance that addresses climate mitigation and adaption in integrated ways, is needed. Interventions should support smallholder farmers to become more resilient to the risks associated with climate change, with mitigation as a co-benefit.
Private finance is needed for these programs to reach scale, but significant public investment is required to establish an enabling environment for risk-adverse investors, and to ensure equitable benefits development outcomes. Getting this mix right is going to take some trial and error.
Read CCAFS latest policy brief: Paving the way for nationally appropriate mitigation actions in the agricultural sector
Emily Boone is a Research Project Assistant for CCAFS Theme 3:Pro-poor mitigation. Follow the latest developments from the UN climate talks in Doha on our blog, on Twitter @cgiarclimate and #ALLForest
