Climate change: not enough cash to help poor countries cope

A plan to help the world’s poorest countries cope with the impact of climate change will be thrust into the spotlight today at the start of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.The Least Developed Countries Fund, an international drive to boost living standards and help the world’s 49 poorest and most vulnerable nations cope with the effects of global warming, was set up in 2001.

The United Nations describes countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific as the world’s least developed. The poorest countries - including Haiti, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda - are heavily burdened with debt, diseases such as Aids and in many cases, conflict. The idea was that countries responsible for emitting the most climate change-causing gases would use the funds to give cash to those that have not been major polluters but are vulnerable to the changing climate. The countries of the European Union, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland said they would contribute $410m a year until 2008. The countries receiving the cash would then set up National Adaptation Programmes of Action and subsequently to fund adaptation projects flagged up as prioities.

But the fund has been at the centre of much controversy – UN figures show that as of 30 September 2009, not even half the amount promised has been paid into the fund. Eight years after the fund was set up, only one project – in Bhutan – out of the total of 426 projects prioritized was being introduced with cash from the fund, an evaluation report by the fund’s managers, the Global Environment Facility found in May this year. The fund needs to simplify its approval process to meet the needs of poor countries, the evaluation suggested, but money is also at the heart of the problem – the fund runs on voluntary contributions from donors, and there have not been enough.The report called on all parties to provide more funds to the LDCF on a regular basis. Most of the projects prioritized targeted food security, ecosystems and water.

By August 2009, eight LDCF projects – in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Eritrea, Niger, and Samoa – were starting to be set up.The money will help initiatives to set up early warning systems, food reserve facilities and rainwater harvesting systems; produce short-cycle rice and maize; and develop climate change vulnerability maps and agricultural risk