Influencing global climate and development discourses for locally led adaptation
IIED is taking strategic action with partners to help mould and direct key global climate and development discourses to better support the people and communities most at risk of the impacts of climate change.

Women carrying firewood in Sierra Leone (Photo: Annie Spratt, via Unsplash)
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs) face significant challenges in accessing sufficient and ‘quality’ climate finance, such as complex application processes and delays in receiving accreditation and approvals.
Yet LDCs and SIDS are among the countries most vulnerable to climate impacts despite being least responsible for global climatic changes.
The global climate finance and development architecture must reform to ensure these countries have access to equitable finance to address the evolving risks and vulnerabilities associated with the changing climate.
What is IIED doing?
IIED is working with partners, such as the Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) and SouthSouthNorth (SSN), country governments and other key policy and programmatic stakeholders to improve climate adaptation finance delivery in the following core areas:
- Enhancing and scaling up adaptation finance: IIED works to improve public adaptation finance mechanisms and explore new financing methods, including engaging private finance and expanding the focus of adaptation finance to climate, nature and people.
- Building strong partnerships: IIED continuously works to leverage partnerships and coalitions, such as those forged through the Climate and Development Ministerial (C&DM), the Champions Group on Adaptation Finance and the adaptation and resilience collaborative for philanthropy, to advance political ambition and improve finance access and delivery.
- Engaging diverse stakeholders: IIED actively seeks out a diverse range of stakeholders, to shape policies and programmes that are responsive to the needs of least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and guide philanthropic efforts towards innovative financing to better support locally-led climate action that enhances resilience. Through these channels, IIED aims to ensure that the principles for locally led adaptation are central to funding and implementation strategies.
Climate and Development Ministerial
The Climate and Development Ministerial (C&DM) was initiated in 2021 to unite and lend support to climate and development ministers to address the priorities of countries vulnerable to climate impacts.
The first ministerial was hosted virtually by the UK in March 2021 and focused on access to climate finance, responding to the impacts of climate change, the quantity, quality, and composition of climate finance, and fiscal space and debt sustainability.

Climate and Development Ministerial group photo ahead of COP28, Dubai, UAE (Photo: COP28 Presidency)
In 2022, the C&DM hosted pivotal discussions around shifting finance to investing behind national platforms, continued reform of the global financial architecture and changing the scale and sources of finance available. This culminated in a C&DM forward plan.
In 2023 the C&DM process resulted in the launch of a vision statement (PDF) on addressing access and delivery of adaptation finance, associated priority actions, and a coalition of ambition on adaptation finance (PDF) at COP28. At this launch, several participating countries and institutions nominated themselves to co-champion one or more of the three goals outlined in the vision statement and steward the delivery of proposed priority actions.
The C&DM process is facilitated by climate finance experts from E3G, SouthSouthNorth (SSN) and IIED.
Read more on the progress made so far and reflections on the process.
Champions Group on Adaptation Finance
The Champions Group on Adaptation Finance was launched at the UN General Assembly in 2021, and demonstrated a critical political commitment to collaborate with the most climate-vulnerable countries to accelerate access to adaptation finance.
This group was kickstarted by the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Finland. The champions group works to:
- Increase the total share of climate finance allocated to adaptation and resilience, particularly LDCs and SIDS, by committing to a balanced approach in their own public climate finance, leading by example, and encouraging others to join them in this effort, and
- Advocate for improved quality and accessibility of adaptation finance.
IIED and E3G provide technical support to the Champions Group on Adaptation Finance.
- Read more about the announcements and recent commitments made by the champions group.
Additional resources
Climate and Development Ministerial 3: Overview, 2023
Insight: Climate adaptation needs urgent philanthropy support, Tom Mitchell, Heather McGray (May 2023)
C&DM vision statement (PDF) (2023)
Partners
C&DM partner countries and endorsers (governments of Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Malawi, Nepal, the Netherlands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Somalia, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom, Vanuatu and the Adaptation Fund)
Brain Trust
Donors
Contact
Ebony Holland ([email protected]), principal researcher, nature-climate policy lead
Mohsen Gul ([email protected]), senior researcher (locally-led action and climate finance)