As climate vulnerable countries in Africa and beyond contend with what has been deemed meagre global financial commitment for the climate crisis fight, fresh hurdles are looming over the modalities of disbursements of the funds to reach vulnerable regions.

The system managing international climate finance to the tune of $100 billion annual commitment, expected to rise to $300 billion this year, is still linked with opaqueness climate justice campaigners say limit the flow of the funds to the grassroots.

Eligibility conditions, they say, are either too complex for local actors and climate initiatives to qualify or monies are disbursed only in form of loans recipients ought to pay back.

It is no different for the bulk of climate funding mobilised through philanthropy and private sources towards climate action in developing countries.

“A significant portion of pledged climate finance does not reach local actors or those most affected due to administrative inefficiencies, intermediary organizations, and conditions tied to loans rather than grants,” observes Njenga Kahiro, Chief Operations Officer at Maliasili, a local organisation working to address the damage and degradation of natural ecosystems.

The Kenya-based non-profit has been assessing prevailing access barriers through rounds of surveys with local environmental organizations working directly with communities across Africa.

It indicates that local actors are, in instances, required to prove that they managed at least $1 million in the past, a threshold many are not able to attain. For several types of bilateral or multilateral funding, locals are not eligible if they do not apply jointly international NGOs.

The latter impose their own restrictive policies and they barely understand the local contexts, further frustrating work on ground.

The above, coupled with difficult reporting requirements act as principal access barriers leaving grassroots climate action generally underfunded.

Implications

With over 80 percent of Africa’s land with critical ecosystem resources estimated to be in the hands of local communities and indigenous people, tackling global environmental challenges in this part of the world without their involvement is prone to failure.

“We have surveyed dozens of locally-led environmental organizations across the continent, and the results highlight systemic barriers within funding mechanisms. Developed countries and philanthropists must adopt more equitable and impactful approaches to climate finance, prioritizing grassroots and community-led efforts,” says Njenga.

To climate justice campaigners, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) like the World Bank, which are responsible for a large portion of climate finance contributed by industrialised countries, are largely to blame for the prevailing access hurdles.

In particular, the displeasure with the very system managing climate finance was at display at the latest UN climate talks where Ugandan Climate activist Denise Ayebare highlighted the issue as ‘the elephant in the room’ in her address to one of the side events.

The young climate activist is one of many adding her voice to demand reforms of the World Bank and IMF structures “to work better for the global South.”

Frustrations rose even more prominently after the initial plans to have Kenya, a country in East Africa, host the loss and damage facility — the Santiago network secretariat head office — became unsuccessful.

For many in the global South, it would make a difference if this institution, now hosted in Geneva, were to be based in the proximity of millions routinely affected by effects of the raging climate crisis.

“The reason we’ve been fighting is to defeat those structures that have continuously not worked for us. We need to ensure that this money goes down to the grassroots and marginalised people who are mostly affected,” said Ayebare.

The criticism of the Multilateral Development Banks is not isolated. The UK-based NGO Oxfam, in a report published in October, criticised the World Bank over poor record keeping and reporting of up to $41 billion climate finance.

Local actors excluded

Like Maliasili, Oxfam’s assessment of access to climate funding by local actors and grassroots initiatives does not offer prospects of changing the plights of millions at the receiving end of the climate crisis.

David Abudho, Climate Justice Advocacy and Campaign Advisor at Oxfam in Africa told Klimareporter considerable opaqueness still exists in the way climate finance is channeled to the local level, while bureaucratic and procedural requirements hamper direct access of these resources by communities at the front line of the climate crisis.

Application procedures, he said, are often too complex, and favour large, well-established organizations capable of meeting the bureaucratic requirements such as financial statements, letters of approval, environmental and social guarantees, proven experience in managing large budgets, and registration documents that are imposed on them.

“The bulk of climate finance goes to international organizations, an indicator of the level of exclusion that local actors still face in directly accessing and managing climate initiatives coming from international public finance,” he said.

This could partly explain why the Sahel region of West Africa, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions, received only 12.7% of the climate finance needs, according to Oxfam’s 2022 assessment of the level of climate funding disbursements to the region.

The region spanning countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal got estimated $11.7 billion climate finance between 2013 and 2019.

Of the funds, 62% came in in the form of debt instruments, implying that the recipients ought to pay back. Grants were only 38% is grants.

Besides, only less than 1% of the $11.7 billion disbursed climate finance went directly to the local actors managing climate initiatives.

~ This article first appeared in Klimareporter