Finance for resilience

Finance for resilience

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Project detail:
Timeframe:
-
Status: Active
Countries: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia
Themes: Climate finance

Context 

Communities on the frontlines of climate change face intensifying shocks, yet access to finance for building resilience remains severely limited. Most global climate finance still flows towards mitigation, and much of what is allocated for adaptation struggles to reach local actors. Rigid project cycles, fragmented funding streams, and complex eligibility criteria often exclude those most affected by climate impacts. 

CDKN’s Finance for Resilience priority area responds to this gap. It promotes flexible, inclusive and locally led financing systems that enable communities, institutions, and ecosystems to prepare for, adapt to, and transform in the face of climate risks.  

Under this framing, climate finance would not be a separate funding stream but rather a cross-cutting enabler that links mitigation, adaptation and transformation across scales and sectors. It supports systemic change, rather than isolated projects, and prioritises equity, learning, and localisation as the foundation of effective climate finance. 

Objectives 

 Through this priority area, CDKN aims to: 

  1. Transform how finance flows – from top-down, project-based approaches to locally led, demand-driven, and context-responsive finance models. 

  1. Advance equitable and inclusive access to climate finance, ensuring women, Indigenous Peoples, youth, and other marginalised groups shape and benefit from climate investments. 

  1. Support effective and inclusive finance architectures, helping countries and regions design systems that deliver predictable, patient, and scaled finance for local action. 

  1. Strengthen the enabling environment for locally led adaptation (LLA) by building capacities, sharing lessons, and amplifying Southern leadership in finance policy spaces. 

  1. Bridge local realities with global narratives, ensuring that the experiences and needs of local actors inform international finance negotiations and decision-making. 

Activities 

 CDKN acts as a knowledge broker and partner in shaping equitable and locally-led finance systems. Its work spans policy engagement, technical support, and learning facilitation. 

 Key activities include: 

  • Co-developing regional finance programmes with the UNFCCC 
    The CDKN team has led co-ideation processes for the UNFCCC’s Needs-Based Finance (NBF) project, supporting the design of regional climate programmes that enhance access to finance through capacity strengthening. To date, 31 regional programme ideas have been conceptualised, with an estimated ambition of mobilising between US$1–2 billion in climate finance. 

  • Providing real-world guidance on financing locally led adaptation (LLA) 
    CDKN shares practical lessons from workable national solutions — such as Kenya’s County Climate Change Fund, led by the Adaptation Consortium — which demonstrates how devolved climate finance architectures can achieve local-level impact. These examples help inform inclusive, scalable finance models in other contexts. 

  • Strengthening national and regional finance architectures 
    A key component of CDKN’s approach is helping governments and partners design inclusive and transparent financial systems that channel resources predictably to local levels. This includes supporting readiness strategies, designing innovation training, and embedding LLA principles into finance mechanisms. 

  • Bridging local access with global advocacy 
    CDKN draws a “red thread” between the realities of accessing finance at the local level and international negotiations on climate finance. It supports local actors to amplify their voices and priorities in national, regional, and global decision-making arenas. 

  • Engaging in key global and regional processes 

  • Contributing to inclusive pathways for financing resilience at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP16 in Cali, Colombia. 

  • Working with the Adaptation Fund to develop its readiness strategy, with a strong emphasis on LLA, and delivering innovation workshops across the Global South. 

  • Joining the Climate and Development Ministerial Process, which highlights priorities of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). 

  • Collaborating with partners under SouthSouthNorth (SSN), as managing partner of the COP Resilience Hub and lead for the Africa Regional Resilience Hub, to ensure local perspectives inform global climate finance dialogues