Devolution of donor funded climate change adaptation finance

From 2013-2019 Tanzania received USD 2.0 billion as adaptation-related development finance, whereas Kenya received USD 3.3 billion. Based on the OECD database, this DIIS Working Paper analysis projects based on their financial value, measured as ‘adaptation-related development finance’. This is combined with an analysis of the project documents to measure degree of devolution was developed with three main parameters:

• the extent to which finance was managed through local government accounts;
• the extent to which the projects in the respective national budgets were considered devolved; and
• the use of participatory planning arrangements for management of the funds.

Given Kenya’s greater emphasis on devolution, its fiscal strengths, and the autonomy of its counties, when compared to Tanzanian local governments, it was assumed that adaptation-related development finance would be relatively more devolved in Kenya than Tanzania. However, preliminary analysis suggests otherwise.

The analysis also suggests that projects classified by development partners as ‘adaptation-related development finance’ in several cases exaggerate levels of funding and only contribute marginally to improved local governance of climate adaption activities.