Policy brief: Shifting climate adaptation finance to local communities through effective intermediaries

Climate adaptation finance is failing to reach the communities most affected by climate impacts, including women, girls, and Indigenous Peoples.

This policy brief explores how climate finance – particularly finance for locally-led adaptation (LLA) – can reach local communities and organisations more effectively. It focuses on the role of intermediary funders and the key attributes they need to direct resources to those closest to the impacts.

Drawing on lessons from the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), a global alliance supporting women-led, community-based organisations, the brief shows how intermediaries can strengthen locally driven climate action and invest in long-term capacity, not just projects.

Co-authored* by IIED, Mama Cash, and GAGGA, the brief contributes to ongoing efforts to strengthen LLA approaches and move climate finance closer to climate justice.

Read the policy brief here.

*Noemi Grütter, Leah Moss, May Thazin Aung and Rojy Joshi. Noemi Grütter, alliance coordinator and advocacy lead, GAGGA/ FCAM; Leah Moss, senior policy strategist, Mama Cash; May Thazin Aung, senior climate finance researcher, IIED; Rojy Joshi, climate finance researcher, IIED. The authors would like to thank Daan Robben, senior policy advisor on climate finance at Both ENDS, for his contribution to this briefing.