Power relations in climate finance coordination

Despite the Global South’s minimal contribution to the causes of climate change, the region bears a disproportionate burden of its consequences. Acknowledging this predicament, the Global North has enhanced transitional efforts to green economies and further committed to mobilize climate finance in support of adaptation and mitigation measures in affected regions in the Global South. In recent years, effective coordination has become critical in ensuring that climate adaptation finance achieves the intended outcomes. However, the climate finance coordination debate has largely been centred at the global level with the Global North and donor organizations focusing mainly on transfer channels and paying limited attention to coordination mechanisms in recipient countries. In the Global South, the debate has mainly centred around domestic policy and institutional mechanisms with limited attention to the complex north-south, political, and power interactions.

Using the theory synthesis approach, this article by the GAP Programme’s Millicent Omala examines the extent to which power relations between donor and recipient countries affect climate finance coordination from the global to subnational levels. The analysis is based on the World Bank-Led Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) as implemented in Nepal, Mozambique, Bangladesh, and Zambia.

This article stresses the need for stakeholders and actors to look beyond the technical understanding of climate finance coordination to acknowledge it for the complex, nonlinear, and political process that it is. It further emphasizes that coordination outcomes are enhanced when actors exercise power with others (cooperation, learning, and deliberation) as opposed to power over others (coercion and manipulation).