Climate finance describes the financial resources mobilised to support countries to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Whilst the amount of climate finance compared to overall official development assistance (ODA) is small, it is growing and significant compared with overall WASH sector budgets in many developing countries.
However, there are questions about how climate finance is being allocated, whether it reaches those who need it most and where it should best be invested. So far, sanitation has been overlooked in the disbursement of finance for climate action and disaster risk reduction. Effort is needed to draw the attention of decision makers to the central role of sustainable sanitation in climate mitigation and adaptation.
In WASH, as elsewhere, there are concerns about investments being biased towards new infrastructure rather than maintenance, sustainability and community ownership and management capacity.
