The Financing Framework for Resilient Growth: what does it mean for Pakistan?

Global commitments to address climate change are on the rise. Countries across the world are being forced to consider climate change considerations in their planning and development work, due to the wide ranging social and economic impacts it has caused. The resolve to keep global temperature rise at 2°C requires concerted efforts, by lower- and higher-income countries alike, in climate change adaptation. Similar to other low- and middle-income countries, Pakistan’s adaptation needs are huge (around US$7-14 billion) while domestic resources dedicated to climate change stand at a mere 8% of the development budget. This is coupled with a crucial ‘implementation gap’ in terms of turning commitments and climate-relevant policies into action on ground. In a blog published this month by CDKN, Marwah Maqbool Malik (assistant consultant in OPM’s Climate Change and Disaster Risk team) details how OPM’s regional programme, Action on Climate Today (ACT) has tried to address the adaptation gap in Pakistan.

The Financing Framework for Resilient Growth (FFRG) in south Asia

ACT has attempted to provide a solution to the adaptation financing needs in South Asia by developing a Financing Framework for Resilient Growth (FFRG). The framework comprises five elements that primarily address two important aspects of the adaptation gap:

• identifying and bridging the gap between existing and needed financial resources for adaptation; and
• building institutional processes and mechanisms that would allow adaptation financing needs to be met.

What lends the framework credibility is its adaptability to varied contexts, and the potential to be applied in a non-linear manner.

Applying FFRG to Pakistan

From among the five elements in the FFRG, ACT’s programme in Pakistan focuses on one element of the framework: filling the adaptation gap. This is being done by leveraging new sources of climate finance and institutional strengthening and capacity building to access and utilise both international and domestic climate finance.

Crucial to efforts in Pakistan is the collaboration with the Ministry of Climate Change on the Climate Finance Unit, which is a unit staffed by ACT consultants. The unit has been centre stage in, and a conduit for, accessing international climate funds. The unit facilitates access to international funding sources by bringing stakeholders together to develop bankable projects and providing technical support in developing and submitting funding applications. It also builds institutional capacity to address climate finance by delivering training to a range of provincial planning and line departments.

Noteworthy achievements of the Climate Finance Unit include more than US$100 million, leveraged from international funds such as Green Climate Fund and Global Environment Facility. This is complemented by an active pipeline of projects for submission to other global funds and trainings on accessing climate finance that have built capacity of around 100 government officials from all across Pakistan.

Lessons from Pakistan’s experience of FFRG also reveal insights that can be applied to institutional strengthening and capacity development efforts on climate finance in other developing countries. You can read more about this in the blog post at CDKN.

Image credit: Dave Primov / Shutterstock.com