Ahead of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference ( COP30 ) in Belém, Brazil, countries are being urged to embrace an approach to climate action and finance with social protection at its heart. Making this connection could not be more important for protecting human dignity, building community resilience and maximizing the impact of limited funds.

At COP29 last year, developed economies agreed to mobilize at least US$300 billion per year in climate finance for developing countries by 2035, as part of the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance. But least-developed countries ( LDCs ) and small island developing states have rightly criticized the target as vague, unenforceable and inadequate. In fact, this figure falls far short of need, especially because climate finance delivery is often highly inefficient. For example, just 0.8% of tracked funds reach small-scale agricultural systems.

This is where social protection comes in. A 2019 study by the LDC Initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience ( Life-AR ) showed that social-protection initiatives can play a powerful role in building climate-resilient communities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2023, echoed this finding. Now, a joint review of 23 Green Climate Fund ( GCF )-funded projects, carried out by the GCF and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO ), has shown that the integration of climate objectives into social protection systems can go a long way towards delivering limited finance where it is needed most.

There are plenty of proven social protection models that advance inclusive climate action. For example, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme supports over eight million people – including the country’s most climate-vulnerable communities – through cash and food transfers, while responding to short-term shocks like droughts and restoring degraded landscapes.

Similarly, India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which reaches more than 60 million rural households, funds climate smart solutions like rainwater harvesting and afforestation ( tree-planting ), which protect communities against droughts and floods. Brazil’s Bolsa Verde links income support to environmental stewardship, incentivizing sustainable land use and forest conservation among low-income families in protected areas.

The 23 GCF projects sampled in the recent FAO-GCF review show similar promise. Paraguay’s Poverty, Reforestation, Energy and Climate Change Project, which receives technical support from the FAO, ties conditional cash transfers to social-welfare goals, such as the establishment of climate-sensitive agricultural and forestry systems, and emphasizes indigenous participation. Botswana’s Ecosystem-Based Adaptation and Mitigation in Communal Rangelands project aims to advance similar goals, with women comprising 60% of its participants.

But, despite some successes, inclusion remains a formidable challenge. As it stands, almost half of the world’s population – including many of those most exposed to the effects of climate change – lacks access to any kind of social safety net. This helps to explain why only three of the projects reviewed in the FAO-GCF report were in low-income countries. Moreover, only six of those projects included people with disabilities, a mere four incorporated young people, and none involved migrants. Of the seven project areas where indigenous peoples were present, only four included them.

Outcomes, too, fell short. For example, the FAO finds that heat stress widens the income gap between female- and male-headed households by US$37 billion a year, and floods by US$16 billion. But while several of the 23 GCF projects were gender-responsive, none was transformative. In addition, fewer than half of the GCF projects included efforts to strengthen existing social protection systems, undermining their long-term sustainability and scalability. Social insurance mechanisms were absent.

Improving outcomes will require a fundamental shift in the prevailing approach to designing, financing and implementing social protection. Rather than continue to depend on short-term project-based grants – the scale of which is necessarily limited – we must emphasize longer-term, coordinated initiatives, focused on building national systems and capabilities, while supporting locally led adaptation. A whole-of-government approach, involving ministries responsible for climate, social protection and emergency management, is essential. And inclusion must be built into every stage of the process.

The GCF can play an important role in advancing this shift. It is well-positioned to catalyze additional, longer-term financing for social protection, taking advantage of innovative mechanisms, such as debt-for-climate swaps and green bonds. Furthermore, it recently introduced reforms to its accreditation model, focused on improving transparency, responsiveness and efficiency, though more flexibility is still needed for low-income countries.

But the GCF cannot do it alone. Other multilateral climate funds must also step up, including by establishing dedicated financing tracks and streamlining access for low-income countries. Governments, for their part, must establish social protection as a pillar of their climate strategies, including Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans and the operational frameworks of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. Development partners and UN agencies must strengthen technical support for inclusive, long-term strategies, not just short-term projects.

COP30 has been designated the “implementation COP”, focused on turning plans and pledges into actions and outcomes. It thus represents the ideal opportunity to apply the lessons from the FAO-GCF report, which lays out clear pathways for scaling social protection to enhance inclusive climate action.

Tracy Kajumba is the director for the Least Developed Countries Initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Copyright: Project Syndicate