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As the Adaptation Fund (AF) gets ready to further enhance its adaptation programs for the most vulnerable in 2024, it is an opportune moment to take stock of AF’s work in 2023 -- another busy and positive year for the Fund.
The AF continues to grow, so far reaching 165 approved concrete projects on the ground in 2023, with over US$ 1.1 billion committed to improving the climate resilience of 43 million total beneficiaries in 112 countries. It is restoring over 635,000 ha of natural habitat and 164,000 meters of coastlines while creating 526 early warning systems at local, country and regional levels.
Nearly half of AF’s projects are in least developed countries or small island developing states, and many projects represent the first adaptation actions in countries -- creating scalable models that can multiply their impacts in more areas. AF also continues to build country capacities and ownership through its pioneering Direct Access (DA) and Enhanced DA modalities.
Record demand for adaptation projects was also apparent throughout 2023. In fact, the year 2024 began with confirmation from a report from Copernicus, the EU’s earth observation program which periodically gathers detailed information on climate change, that 2023 was the hottest on record by significant margins -- including .60°C above 1991-2020 mean averages and 1.48°C above 1850-1900 pre-industrial averages. The large margin by which the previous record was surpassed provides indisputable testimony of how much warmer and riskier today’s climate is and adds further to the urgency of investments in adaptation funding highlighted by a UNEP adaptation gap report released in 2023 -- which estimated adaptation finance needs of developing countries to be 10-18 times larger than what is provided by international public finance. The AF’s own active pipeline of projects under development reflects such increasing needs as it grew to US$ 425 million during 2023.
Learning, evaluation and innovation in adaptation were showcased and advanced at the Adaptation Futures Conference in Montreal, and will continue to grow to accelerate a larger base of scalable AF solutions that help meet these urgent global adaptation needs. One of AF’s innovation grantees was recognized at the UN COP 28 climate conference in Dubai as a Local Adaptation Champion for applying traditional techniques like fog catching to address drought in Mexico.
The Fund also held several in-person country and project exchanges throughout 2023, fostering sharing of lessons and best practices among its community of Direct Access national implementing entities to enhance access to climate finance and visit tangible, effective AF projects firsthand -- from addressing sea level rise in Indonesia to enhancing water and food scarcity in the Dominican Republic.
Several important knowledge studies were further released by the AF in 2023 on lessons and successes from its portfolio, including disaster risk reduction and early warning systems, and adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected settings, among others, and will continue to make impacts in furthering learning in the adaptation field -- with more planned for release in 2024.
To help ensure the AF invests in impactful activities, it launched, with significant inputs from its independent Technical Evaluation Reference Group, a new evaluation policy aimed at helping AF build on its learning and effectiveness through additional evaluation tools.
The Fund had a significant presence at COP 28 where it collaborated with its implementing entities, donors and partners to stress the increasing needs in adaptation and showcase models of success from its portfolio. In particular the Fund joined the Coalition of Ambition on Adaptation Finance launched by the Climate and Development Ministerial and endorsed its vision and goals, which mirror those set by the Fund in its medium-term strategy for 2023-2027. They include enhancing country-owned programs, as well as access to and scaling up adaptation finance.
The AF also took key strides to improve health of populations that are vulnerable to climate-related health risks when it accredited the World Health Organization as an implementing partner - the first health-focused implementing entity among climate funds - and endorsed the Guiding Principles for Financing Climate and Health Solutions -- a key COP 28 initiative that will empower the Fund to further expand on its portfolio of health-related adaptation projects.
In addition, the AF collaborated directly with the other climate funds at COP 28 on the first ever joint Climate Funds pavilion and agreed to further enhance access to climate finance and increase the four funds’ collective impacts through enhanced complementarity and coherence. It carries bright potential in 2024 for further inter-fund collaboration to enhance synergies that serve the most climate-vulnerable.
Already some 20 AF projects have been scaled up by the Green Climate Fund, and AF and GCF have established reciprocal arrangements to improve access to climate finance through fast-track accreditations. AF is also collaborating with GCF, the Global Environment Facility and Climate Investment Funds to enhance gender equality in programs, among other themes.
COP28 achieved some important milestones for adaptation with parties’ adoption of targets and a framework on the Global Goal on Adaptation and the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund. It was unfortunate however that it did not advance on other critical issues related to adaptation finance such as operationalizing a sustainable development mechanism that according to parties’ previous decisions is expected to raise more funding for the AF through the carbon markets in the future. These are now on the agenda of COP 29 in 2024.
Against such background the AF fell shy of a US$ 300 million target for 2023 to help keep pace with the record adaptation demand. Still, the AF raised a commendable amount of over US$ 192 million from 16 contributors, the third largest single-year resource mobilization total of its 16-year history, and it will redouble its efforts to expand funding sources in 2024.
In 2024, the AF will further adapt and expand opportunities for vulnerable countries through funding adaptation action projects, innovation, learning and sharing. It will also embark early in 2024 on designing new funding modalities for Locally Led Adaptation, with a focus to enable funding access to non-accredited grassroot organizations. It will further engage on important questions on adaptation finance within the framework of the UNFCCC.
With its newest 5-year strategy getting underway in 2023, the AF promises to be even more impactful for vulnerable countries in 2024 as it strengthens links between its pillars of action, innovation and learning and sharing while expanding options such as scaling up effective actions and locally led adaptation.
The AF looks forward to working with all its stakeholders in 2024 to increase the resilience of vulnerable nations and communities.
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