Reflections on access, national capability and the journey from global commitments to lasting resilience
By Junior Abdul-Wahab
Reading time: Approximately 13 minutes
This essay grew from an online technical knowledge-sharing session with the research team of the Global Youth Climate Challenge on 12 July 2025. At the time, I served as a volunteer researcher with the team. I later developed those reflections into this article for publication.
The views expressed are personal and do not represent the Global Youth Climate Challenge or any current or former professional affiliation.
My route into climate finance began with development economics and a longstanding interest in the institutions that shape people’s opportunities. I had spent years thinking about poverty, inequality, public policy and the difficult work of translating evidence into better development outcomes. Climate change brought an added urgency to all of those questions because its effects reach far beyond the environment. They influence food security, public health, education, migration, employment, infrastructure and the fiscal choices available to governments. For countries already managing limited resources and deep development needs, every climate shock can erode years of patient progress.
An internship with a multilateral climate fund gave me an opportunity to examine these connections from within the international climate finance system. The experience had a profound influence on my professional development. I contributed to work on climate resilience projects across Asia and Africa and supported the fund’s second performance review, which allowed me to see how an international institution studies its own performance and listens to the countries, communities and organisations that experience its work. I approached the internship with considerable excitement because it brought together my interests in development, public institutions, evaluation and the practical use of evidence.
The experience also revealed the size of the task. Every project carried the weight of urgent local needs and the expectations created by global commitments. Behind each proposal sat a long institutional journey involving public officials, technical specialists, communities, accredited organisations, fund staff and decision makers. Each group worked within its own procedures and responsibilities, while the climate threat continued to move at a pace that rarely respected institutional timetables.
As I reflected on the projects and the wider evidence, one question began to organise my thinking: What enables a vulnerable country to turn climate finance into resilience that people can experience in their daily lives?
That question stayed with me when I later shared my technical experience with fellow researchers at the Global Youth Climate Challenge. It shifted my attention towards the route finance must travel, the capabilities required at every stage and the quality of the partnership between international institutions and national governments.
Following climate finance to its destination
The scale of climate finance has grown significantly. The Climate Policy Initiative estimated that tracked global climate finance reached about USD 1.46 trillion in 2022, more than twice its 2018 level. The OECD also reported that developed countries provided and mobilised USD 115.9 billion for climate action in developing countries during 2022, exceeding the longstanding USD 100 billion annual goal for the first time. These figures represented years of negotiation, institution building, public investment and expanding private participation, and they offered genuine grounds for encouragement.
The composition and destination of that finance tell a deeper story. The Climate Policy Initiative recorded approximately USD 1.17 trillion for mitigation in its 2021 and 2022 annual average, while adaptation received about USD 68 billion. Within the OECD total for developing countries, adaptation finance reached USD 32.4 billion in 2022. UNEP used a different methodology and reported USD 28 billion in international public adaptation finance flowing to developing countries in the same year, compared with estimated annual adaptation needs of between USD 215 billion and USD 387 billion.
These estimates measure different parts of the climate finance landscape, so they should be read as complementary views of a complicated system. Together, they show that substantial finance is moving and that the distance between current adaptation flows and identified needs remains vast. They also show why a single global total can provide only a partial account of progress.
Many of the investments that drive aggregate growth are commercially attractive mitigation projects in energy and transport. Such investments are essential to the global transition, and their expansion deserves recognition. The priorities of highly vulnerable countries frequently include resilient water systems, coastal protection, climate-smart agriculture, early-warning services, public health preparedness and stronger local institutions. These investments protect lives, livelihoods and development gains, although many produce diffuse public benefits that investors cannot easily convert into predictable revenue.
For a policymaker in a lower-income country, the practical concern is therefore the amount and type of finance that can reach a national priority under terms the country can responsibly manage. A large renewable-energy investment in a wealthier economy contributes to the global climate response. A drought-prone district needs a different financial pathway to secure water, protect livelihoods and prepare for the next shock. Both belong in the climate finance story, while their institutional requirements and development effects differ considerably.
An architecture built through decades of cooperation
The international community has spent more than three decades building institutions to support climate action. The Global Environment Facility established an early channel for multilateral environmental finance. The Adaptation Fund expanded direct access and financed practical adaptation measures. The Climate Investment Funds worked through multilateral development banks to support major transitions. More recent multilateral climate funds strengthened attention to country ownership, direct access, adaptation and the particular circumstances of Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and African countries. The creation of a dedicated fund for responding to loss and damage added another important part to this evolving architecture.
These institutions have financed renewable energy, resilient agriculture, early-warning systems, coastal protection and many other investments that communities urgently need. They have also helped governments and national organisations strengthen safeguards, financial management, climate planning and project implementation. Their accumulated experience gives the international community a strong foundation for improving the way climate finance works.
My own experience led me to view the access challenge as a shared institutional problem. International funds have a duty to protect public resources, assess climate impact, manage environmental and social risks and demonstrate results. National institutions carry equally serious responsibilities to their citizens, public finances and development priorities. Effective access grows from arrangements that allow these responsibilities to reinforce each other.
The quality of partnership becomes decisive. International institutions need to appreciate the expertise that already exists within developing-country governments, including the practical knowledge officials gain from managing policies, budgets, communities and crises. National actors need a meaningful role in setting priorities, designing investments and learning from implementation. When international and national expertise meet on respectful terms, climate finance can support an individual project while strengthening the system that will manage future climate risks.
The demanding work behind a fundable proposal
Consider a ministry responsible for communities facing repeated flooding. Officials may understand the affected areas, the damaged infrastructure, the livelihoods at risk and the weaknesses in existing drainage. They may also know which local authorities and communities can help shape a workable response. Turning that public problem into a climate finance proposal introduces another layer of work.
The ministry may need to establish a detailed climate rationale, assemble historical and projected climate data, define a baseline, estimate economic losses, analyse alternatives, prepare procurement plans, identify co-financing, demonstrate compliance with safeguards and construct a results framework that can survive years of implementation. Officials must coordinate several public agencies whose mandates, data systems and planning calendars may differ. They must sustain senior political attention while responding to immediate demands and managing ordinary government responsibilities.
Every requirement can serve an important purpose. Together, they place a heavy preparation burden on institutions with small technical teams and constrained budgets. Wealthier governments and large institutions can usually draw on specialist staff or hire extensive advisory support. A lower-income country may face greater climate exposure with fewer people available to prepare the evidence that unlocks finance. Proposal readiness then becomes a powerful influence on the distribution of resources.
This is where the language of access becomes tangible. Eligibility gives a country the formal right to seek finance. Effective access requires the people, systems, partnerships and sustained support that can carry a priority from an initial idea through approval, implementation and learning.
Accreditation should begin a longer capability journey
Accreditation offers national and regional institutions an important route into multilateral climate finance. The process can strengthen fiduciary standards, environmental and social safeguards, gender policies, procurement systems and institutional governance. It can also deepen country ownership by enabling institutions closer to national priorities to manage climate investments.
During my internship, I came to understand accreditation as the beginning of a longer institutional relationship. An accredited organisation still needs a credible pipeline, capable project teams, strong national coordination and the confidence to engage with complex review processes. It must then procure, implement, monitor, learn and report over several years. Each stage draws on a different combination of technical and organisational capabilities.
External consultants can make valuable contributions throughout this journey. They often bring specialised expertise that a government requires for a particular investment. Their work creates the greatest long-term value when national officials remain closely involved, understand the analytical choices and retain the ability to adapt the project after external support ends. A successful proposal can then leave behind stronger institutions, better data and a more confident national team.
The true measure of access extends beyond the number of accredited organisations or approved projects. It includes the capability a country retains, the authority national institutions exercise and the quality of future investments they can develop. Climate finance should build institutional resilience with the same seriousness it brings to physical infrastructure.
Financial terms shape the development outcome
The instrument attached to climate finance has consequences for a country’s fiscal future. Loans can be appropriate for investments that generate reliable income or substantial savings. Grants and highly concessional finance are especially valuable for public goods, institutional capacity, support to low-income communities, adaptation measures with diffuse benefits and responses to loss and damage.
This distinction matters in countries already carrying high debt burdens and limited fiscal space. A coastal protection system can safeguard lives, homes, roads and local economies for decades, while its financial return appears across society and rarely arrives as a direct revenue stream. A loan for that investment creates a clear repayment obligation even when the protected benefits cannot be captured on a balance sheet.
The purpose of an investment should therefore guide the financial instrument. Grants can support public capacity and the most vulnerable communities. Highly concessional lending can finance long-term development benefits under manageable conditions. Guarantees and blended finance can help where a genuine commercial opportunity exists and where public participation distributes risk fairly. Careful matching of purpose and instrument allows climate finance to strengthen resilience while protecting fiscal sustainability.
Predictability carries similar importance for long-term planning. Governments plan major investments through budgets, procurement schedules and multi-year programmes. They need a reasonable understanding of when resources will arrive, how long support will continue and what obligations the finance will create. Predictable flows allow ministries to retain teams, coordinate agencies, engage communities and connect climate action with wider national planning.
What fairer access would require
A practical starting point lies in greater alignment across funds. Common or mutually recognised approaches to fiduciary assessment, safeguards, procurement and reporting could reduce repeated institutional reviews while maintaining high standards. An organisation that has demonstrated its systems through a credible multilateral process should be able to carry part of that assurance into its relationship with another fund. Such cooperation would release scarce national capacity for project design and implementation.
Sustained technical support also needs to move closer to applicants. Regional teams and long-term partnerships can help governments strengthen climate data, develop country programmes and turn priorities into investable pipelines. The most useful support begins while ideas are still forming, continues through preparation and remains available as institutions confront the unpredictable realities of implementation. This approach treats capability as a durable public asset.
Programme finance can connect related investments under a coherent national framework. A resilience programme could bring together municipal drainage, watershed management, early-warning systems, climate information and livelihood protection while allowing local interventions to respond to their own contexts. Shared preparation and results systems can reduce duplication, support learning across locations and create a clearer pathway for scaling effective approaches.
The allocation of grants and concessional finance should also reflect vulnerability, fiscal space and the public character of adaptation benefits. This requires attention to the net contribution that finance makes to resilience, including the debt obligation, implementation burden and institutional capability left behind. A large commitment can produce modest development value when its terms constrain the country that receives it.
Predictable public revenue will remain essential because many adaptation and loss-and-damage priorities offer limited commercial returns. Government contributions can be complemented by carefully designed mechanisms linked to high-emitting activities, including international transport, fossil-fuel extraction and carbon-pricing revenues. Any such mechanism requires transparent governance, fair allocation of responsibility and protections for vulnerable consumers and import-dependent countries. Its legitimacy will depend on whether those who carry the greatest climate burden can see a reliable connection between the revenue collected and the resilience it finances.
Climate justice expressed through institutions
Climate justice becomes real through the design and daily operation of institutions. It appears in whose knowledge shapes a project, how long an applicant waits, which financial terms a country receives, where decision-making authority sits and whether local organisations emerge stronger after implementation. These choices determine how global solidarity is experienced by a ministry, a municipality and a community preparing for the next flood or drought.
Youth movements have played an important role in keeping this institutional question visible. Young researchers, organisers and professionals can examine the meaning behind headline figures, ask where resources travel and bring local experience into debates that often feel distant from the people most affected. My technical discussion with the Global Youth Climate Challenge belonged to that wider effort. It gave me an opportunity to connect professional experience with a community of young people committed to climate action and development justice.
When I first entered the climate finance field, the scale of the global commitments immediately captured my attention. The work gradually taught me to follow those resources through institutions, procedures and relationships until they reach the people whose lives they are intended to protect. That journey determines whether a commitment becomes a stronger ministry, a safer coastline, a resilient farm, an effective warning system or a community better prepared for an uncertain climate.
The world has built a substantial climate finance architecture and mobilised resources that would have been difficult to imagine a generation ago. The next chapter should deepen country ownership, strengthen national capability and make access proportionate to the urgency of the climate challenge. Vulnerable countries already carry knowledge, priorities and determination. A fair climate finance system will meet them with reliable resources, respectful partnership and the institutional patience required to turn global responsibility into lasting resilience.
Junior Abdul-Wahab 