Building resilience in Ethiopia: climate-resilient development planning and budgeting

IIED is contributing to Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Facility efforts to track climate and disaster-related spending, institutionalise local climate-resilient development planning, and enhance coordination with other institutions to access and manage climate finance.

Project
January 2021 - December 2023
Contact: 
Sam Barrett
,

Researcher (climate adaptation), Climate Change

Collection
Climate-resilient development
A programme of work showing how IIED is supporting governments, civil society and communities to achieve climate-resilient development outcomes for the most vulnerable people
Groups of people and cattle taking and drinking water from a well

Qacha Chalu water point in East Shoa Zone, central Ethiopia (Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia via FlickrCC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Ethiopia is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s fastest growing economies but remains highly exposed to climate change impacts, which vary significantly across its many regions and environmental zones.

Impacts include droughts, unpredictable rainfall, increased temperatures and greater risk of livestock and crop diseases, all of which have the potential to undermine livelihoods and worsen existing tensions between communities.

However, as one of the least developed countries (LDCs), Ethiopia has historically recorded low carbon emissions, and has done little to contribute to global heating.

The Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) initiative is an ambitious Ethiopian strategy to guide the country towards becoming a climate-resilient, middle-income economy by 2025.

The CRGE Facility was established under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation to mobilise and coordinate finance for the delivery and implementation of the strategy, and is responsible for accessing and managing climate finance, including Ethiopia’s US$45m Green Climate Fund programme to rehabilitate degraded forests and enhance water access.

Established in 2011, the CRGE Facility is one of the world’s first institutions set up to coordinate climate finance delivery in this manner. Ten years after its establishment, it aims to consolidate and enhance its capabilities and continue to improve development and resilience outcomes for marginalised citizens.

What is IIED doing?

The project is part of 'Building Resilience in Ethiopia', a larger programme funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and USAID, and implemented by Oxford Policy Management

Under the instruction of the CRGE Facility and working in close collaboration with our partner in Addis Ababa, Echnoserve, IIED is supporting work across the following key areas:

•    Developing guidelines for climate adaptation budget tagging, enabling the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation as well as sectoral ministries to track spending across sectors on climate adaptation and disaster preparation and response
•    Working with regional and local government staff to develop guidelines for an integrated multi-sectoral and risk informed local development planning process to enhance community resilience to climate change. The process involves testing and refining them in partnership with staff from local government authorities. 
•    Working to enhance the development and delivery of climate information to governments and households in support of local climate smart development planning. 
•    Enhancing the ability of CRGE facility to mobilise climate finance towards objectives driven by local needs and contexts, improve the monitoring of existing programmes, and effectively share and communicate learning internally to improve the quality of future work.

So far, IIED has contributed to development of guidelines and training for tagging climate and disaster related expenditure in the government's financial tracking systems.