The event, ‘Practical solutions for enhancing access to climate finance in support of the new Programme of Action for the LDCs’ is scheduled to bring together ministers and senior representatives from Bhutan, The Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, with a Keynote address from the Tuvalu Minister for Finance, Seve Paeniu. Conference attendees can join us at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha in room 104 on Wednesday 8th March 2023 at 17:15 – 18:45 local time (GMT+3).

LDC5 is scheduled to run from 5-9 March 2023, bringing together world leaders, governments, civil society organisations, private sector and youth representatives for action in what is billed as a ‘Race against time’ to deliver on the 17 globally agreed Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, which include commitments on the environment and climate as well as poverty and access to basic services such as healthcare and education. There are currently 46 countries on the UN-reviewed list of LDCs, of which 28 are implementing or designing adaptation actions using the LoCAL mechanism for climate finance delivery.

The DoPA lays out six priority areas for action, including: “Addressing climate change, environmental degradation, recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and building resilience against future shocks for risk-informed sustainable development”. Under this heading, “Climate adaptation and building resilience, including sustainable management of natural resources” is a key action area, where LoCAL is earmarked as an ‘existing initiative’ that has been targeted to “Support the full formulation and implementation of national adaptation plans, including integrated and strategic adaptation action at the national and local levels by all least developed countries.”

Leaders from the LDCs say their countries as especially vulnerable and disproportionally affected by the negative impacts of climate change, environmental degradation and disasters. At the same time, investment in adaptation to the impacts of climate change and spending on disaster risk reduction falls considerably short of needs. They want to see donors and partners deliver in full on their promise – made, but not yet kept - to mobilise US$100 billion of climate finance each year for supporting developing countries. They also want a greater proportion of finance for adaptation over mitigation, which is less urgent for their nations as they are not highly industrialised.

LDCs across Africa, Asia and the Pacific are implementing adaptation solutions with LoCAL, which channels finance to sub-national government for locally-led resilience building. Designed by UN Capital Development Fund over ten years ago, LoCAL is now an international ISO standard approach for climate finance delivery. LoCAL is owned by the countries that implement the mechanism, steering priorities through the annual LoCAL Board, which is also brings countries together for capacity building and knowledge sharing as well as joint advocacy and strategizing.