scholarly journals Role of Intermediaries in Shaping Climate Finance in Developing Countries—Lessons from the Green Climate Fund

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5507
Author(s):  
Abrar Chaudhury
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Country Ownership ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Green Climate Fund ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Set Up

Social scientists are increasingly interested in the processes that give shape to global policy solutions. I investigate the issues of intermediation and the role of intermediaries in climate finance. I use the case of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a new consortium for dedicated funding set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to assist developing countries in responding to climate threats, to ask a fundamental question: What role do intermediaries (GCF-accredited and related entities) play in catalysing climate action through climate finance in these countries? This paper offers three propositions focused on the role of intermediaries in the GCF, and tests these using data from the GCF and the wider literature. The results show a growing dominance of international intermediaries in GCF project development and implementation, the low capacity of national intermediaries to conceive and scale projects, and the mismatch between planned and actual funding allocations. Collectively, these outcomes derail the GCF from its core objectives of promoting country ownership of projects, building capacity of local intermediaries, and equitable allocation of funding between mitigation and adaptation. I offer three learning models to help the GCF and intermediaries capitalise on the early lessons from GCF activities and to scale climate finance effectively in developing countries.

THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF TIED AID AND LOCAL CONTENT REQUIREMENTS FOR CLIMATE FINANCE

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050002
Author(s):  
MARÍA VICTORIA ROMÁN ◽  
IÑAKI ARTO ◽  
ALBERTO ANSUATEGI ◽  
IBON GALARRAGA
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Incentive ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Local Content ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Green Climate Fund ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Tied Aid

The Paris Agreement states that from 2020 developed countries will mobilize at least USD 100 billion per year to support climate action in developing countries. The attainment of this objective involves decisions by donor countries about the channel and destination of climate finance disbursements. This paper explores how the spending conditions associated to different disbursement options can affect the opportunities for donors to expand their exports. In particular, using a Multiregional Input-Output Model, it finds that donors have an economic incentive for choosing bilateral channels that enable to tie aid to the detriment of multilateral ones, such as the Green Climate Fund. On the other hand, local content requirements imposed by recipient countries do not substantially affect donors’ exports, since they do not reduce intermediate exports, which represent a relevant share of the total exports generated by the mitigation and adaptation actions analysed.

Accountability at the Green Climate Fund: Taking a Look at the Independent Redress Mechanism

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-170
Author(s):  
Siddhanth Prasad ◽  
Malvika Kaushik
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Green Climate Fund ◽  
Tools And Methods

Given the pivotal role of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in climate finance and the importance of ensuring that it is accountable to its stakeholders, this analysis takes a look at the GCF’s recently created Independent Redress Mechanism (IRM) – a grievance redress mechanism that entertains complaints from people affected or potentially affected by a GCF project and from developing countries that have been denied funding by the GCF Board. The analysis provides an overview of the tools and methods that the IRM uses to hold the GCF to account and explores some of its procedural innovations. It argues that although the IRM lacks the power to issue binding decisions, it adequately makes up for this through the use of soft power.

The Role of Late-Night Infotainment Comedy in Communicating Climate Change Consensus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward John Roy Clarke ◽  
Anna Klas ◽  
Joshua Stevenson ◽  
Emily Jane Kothe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Behavioural Intentions ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
Diverse Audience

Climate change is a politically-polarised issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to perceive it as human-caused and consequential. Furthermore, they are less likely to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarised or depolarised a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioural intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one gender unspecified, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarisation (or increase it) relative to a control on mitigation policy support, it resulted in hyperpolarisation on support for adaptation policies and increased climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives.

How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Lea Robinson ◽  
Jessica Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Intergenerational Transmission ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Female Line ◽  
Using Data

AbstractWhile gender gaps in political participation are pervasive, especially in developing countries, this study provides systematic evidence of one cultural practice that closes this gap. Using data from across Africa, this article shows that matrilineality – tracing kinship through the female line – is robustly associated with closing the gender gap in political participation. It then uses this practice as a lens through which to draw more general inferences. Exploiting quantitative and qualitative data from Malawi, the authors demonstrate that matrilineality's success in improving outcomes for women lies in its ability to sustain more progressive norms about the role of women in society. It sets individual expectations about the gendered beliefs and behaviors of other households in the community, and in a predictable way through the intergenerational transmission of the practice. The study tests and finds evidence against two competing explanations: that matrilineality works through its conferral of material resources alone, or by increasing education for girls.

scholarly journals Mobilizing private adaptation finance: lessons learned from the Green Climate Fund

2021 ◽  
Vol 167 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. P. Stoll ◽  
W. P. Pauw ◽  
F. Tohme ◽  
C. Grüning
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Market Imperfections ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Green Climate Fund ◽  
Positive Externalities ◽  
Private Sector Engagement

AbstractThe mobilization of effective private sector engagement is considered to be critical to address the adaptation challenge, but literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult. In the context of international climate finance, the focus has been on mobilizing private finance for adaptation and in addressing barriers that prevent investments from materializing. In contrast, this article identifies options to engage the private sector in adaptation beyond finance and focuses on market imperfections instead of barriers. This moves the focus away from simply mobilizing more private adaptation finance towards identifying market forces that innovate, engage, and direct investments towards adaptation. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its portfolio of 74 adaptation projects serve as a case study. Two of these projects are categorized as private sector projects and an additional nine mobilize private co-finance or non-financial private contributions. Beyond these two indicators, we demonstrate that an additional 60 projects engage the private sector in other ways, thus indicating the important broader role of the private sector in adaptation. Furthermore, our ordinal regression demonstrates that by addressing the market imperfections of positive externalities, imperfect financial markets, and incomplete and/or asymmetric information, all have a significant positive effect on private sector engagement in the GCF’s adaptation portfolio. Both findings indicate that there is a large potential for the GCF—and other climate finance providers—to increase private sector engagement in adaptation. It must be noted, however, that the mobilization of private sector engagement in adaptation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The main aim should be to adapt society as a whole in an efficient manner, including the most vulnerable groups and people.

scholarly journals Remittance Concentration and Volatility

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amr Hosny
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Geographic Concentration ◽  
Global Shocks ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Source Countries ◽  
The Impact

This paper contributes to the literature by introducing the role of geographic concentration of the source of remittances. Specifically, using data over 2010-2015 for 72 developing countries, we study the impact of (i) large remittances and (ii) the geographic concentration of the source of remittances on economic volatilities. Results suggest that while (i) large remittances can be stabilizing on average, (ii) high remittance concentration from source countries can aggravate economic volatilities in recipient countries. Results are robust to global shocks affecting both source and recipient countries, and volatility in the remittance-sending country.

scholarly journals A Breakdown of Developed Countries’ Public Climate Finance Contributions Towards the $100 Billion Goal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Thwaites ◽  
Julie Bos
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Technical Note ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Individual Country ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Individual

In 2009, as part of the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries committed to collectively mobilizing $100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020 to support developing countries in reducing emissions and adapting to climate change. This commitment is foundational to the “grand bargain” behind the Paris Agreement: that all countries would commit to more ambitious climate action but developing countries would require enhanced support from developed countries to do so. The $100 billion is a collective commitment by developed countries, and meeting it will require them all to do their part. Over the past decade, there have been several assessments of aggregate progress towards the goal, but until now, no data set has attempted to comprehensively break down each country’s full public financial contribution. This technical note aims to fill this gap, increasing transparency and accountability around progress towards the $100 billion commitment by breaking down how much each developed country has contributed in public climate finance between 2013 and 2018, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available. The individual breakdowns are then used to assess how countries’ efforts compare using a variety of metrics. The methodology for breaking down and analyzing individual country contributions can be applied to future climate finance data. To improve accountability of countries’ contributions towards the $100 billion commitment, this technical note identified several methodological barriers that need to be addressed in future climate finance reporting efforts.

scholarly journals Foreign Aid, Political Institutions and Economic Freedom: Empirical Evidence from Selected Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-178
Author(s):  
MirajulHaq MirajulHaq ◽  
Nuzhat Shamim ◽  
Muhammad Luqman
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Economic Freedom ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Using Data

This articleempirically examines the effects of foreign aid on economic freedom while consideringthe mediating role of political institutions. Wecontribute to the literature in two ways.First, weprovide an empirical analysisofhow different types of foreign aid affectthe economic freedom of the receiving country. Second, we provide evidence regarding how political institutions mediatethe foreign aid/economic freedom relationship. We useIV and GMMtechniquesto test a model using data from 40developing countries covering the time period 1985 to 2016. Our analysis yieldsthree main findings. First, democratic and politically stable countriesenjoy more economic freedom.Second, foreign aid’s net effect is to reduce economic freedom, whether weconsider official development assistance (ODA) ornet official assistance (NOA).Finally, economic freedomincreaseswithboth types of foreign aid if the receiving country’s political institutionsare moredemocraticand/ordurable.

scholarly journals CLIMATE POLICY AND THE OPTIMAL BALANCE BETWEEN MITIGATION, ADAPTATION AND UNAVOIDED DAMAGE

2010 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCESCO BOSELLO ◽  
CARLO CARRARO ◽  
ENRICA DE CIAN
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Optimal Timing ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
Optimal Mix ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Open Question

It has become commonly accepted that a successful climate strategy should compound mitigation and adaptation. The accurate combination between adaptation and mitigation that can best address climate change is still an open question. This paper proposes a framework that integrates mitigation, adaptation, and climate change residual damages into an optimisation model. This set-up is used to provide some insights on the welfare maximising resource allocation between mitigation and adaptation, on their optimal timing, and on their marginal contribution to reducing vulnerability to climate change. The optimal mix between three different adaptation modes (reactive adaptation, anticipatory adaptation, and investment in innovation for adaptation purposes) within the adaptation bundle is also identified. Results suggest that the joint implementation of mitigation and adaptation is welfare improving. Mitigation should start immediately, whereas adaptation somewhat later. It is also shown that in a world where the probability of climate-related catastrophic events is small and where decision makers have a high discount rate, adaptation is unambiguously the preferred option. Adaptation needs, both in developed and developing countries, will be massive, especially during the second half of the century. Most of the adaptation burden will be on developing countries. International cooperation is thus required to equally distribute the costs of adaptation.

scholarly journals Some thoughts on the role of social sciences in the agricultural research centres in developing countries.

1977 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-228
Author(s):  
D.B.W.M. van Dusseldorp
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Research Centres

Agricultural research pays relatively little attention to the effects that the implementation of the research results will have on society. The posting of more social scientists at research stations is therefore advocated. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission)

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