{"id":5634,"date":"2026-07-24T13:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.powershiftafrica.org\/in-the-news\/green-climate-fund-signals-hope-in-a-warming-world-abw"},"modified":"2026-10-28T09:24:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:24:29","slug":"green-climate-fund-signals-hope-in-a-warming-world-abw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/in-the-news\/green-climate-fund-signals-hope-in-a-warming-world-abw\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Climate Fund signals hope in a warming world"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"
The board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF)\u00a0met in Dushanbe,\u00a0Tajikistan, in July 2026. | GCF<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY AMOS WEMANYA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as delegates concluded the Green Climate Fund (GCF)\u00a0board meeting in Dushanbe,\u00a0Tajikistan, in July 2026, nature was delivering a painful reminder that climate change is moving much faster than climate finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the world, extreme weather intensified under the influence of a rapidly strengthening\u00a0super El Ni\u00f1o. Europe sweltered under record temperatures\u00a0that\u00a0exceeded\u00a040\u00b0C\u00a0in some places. The United States battled crippling heatwaves, flash\u00a0floods\u00a0and infrastructure failures. A powerful typhoon tore through the western Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in Africa, communities were once again paying the highest price, with severe floods in Ghana displacing\u00a0families, destroying homes\u00a0and disrupting livelihoods, adding to a growing list of climate disasters that have become all too familiar across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These events are\u00a0signs\u00a0of a new climate reality in which losses and damages are increasing faster than countries can recover from them.\u00a0It is in this context that the outcomes of the\u00a0GCF\u00a0board meeting deserve recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approval of\u00a0US$369 million\u00a0in new climate finance\u00a0for\u00a0developing countries across\u00a010\u00a0climate\u00a0adaptation\u00a0projects,\u00a0all prioritising\u00a0climate\u00a0adaptation interventions,\u00a0signals a welcome shift towards building resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of this,\u00a050 percent is\u00a0in\u00a0grant\u00a0finance,\u00a0targeting\u00a0critical adaptation projects in three African countries.\u00a0At the same time, the board\u00a0approved the first-ever GCF project in the Central African Republic,\u00a0allocating\u00a0$USD\u00a069.1 million to strengthen climate-resilient water, sanitation, and disaster management systems for the\u00a0country\u2019s most vulnerable children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cote\u00a0d\u2019Ivoire\u00a0secured\u00a0$40 million\u00a0to\u00a0enhance\u00a0sustainable land management and climate-resilient Agri-food systems,\u00a0while Togo\u00a0received\u00a0$42.8 million to\u00a0build\u00a0the\u00a0resilience of\u00a0its national health system and\u00a0that of\u00a0vulnerable communities\u00a0to climate-sensitive health outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This builds on the Board\u2019s recent landmark decision to\u00a0establish\u00a0two regional offices in Africa\u2014\u00a0in\u00a0Kenya and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire\u2014\u00a0which has been lauded\u00a0as a pivotal\u00a0institutional reform\u00a0designed to address the long-standing accessibility concerns voiced by developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accreditation of Kenya\u2019s Equity Group Holdings and Mali\u2019s Mali-Folkecenter\u00a0NYETAA as\u00a0direct\u00a0access\u00a0entities is equally significant, bringing climate finance closer to local institutions that understand community needs.\u00a0The\u00a0board also launched the GCF\u2019s third replenishment process and adopted reforms intended to improve efficiency, country\u00a0ownership\u00a0and gender-responsive programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\u00a0these positive developments cannot obscure\u00a0the uncomfortable truth\u00a0that\u00a0climate finance is not keeping pace with climate impacts.\u00a0Africa currently receives an estimated\u00a0US$13\u201326 billion in adaptation finance annually, while the continent\u2019s adaptation needs are already\u00a0estimated at\u00a0more than\u00a0US$100 billion\u00a0each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Globally, adaptation needs are projected to rise to between\u00a0US$300 billion\u00a0and\u00a0US$365 billion\u00a0annually by 2035. Even more concerning, adaptation finance declined between 2022 and 2023 instead of increasing, despite worsening climate impacts and repeated international commitments to scale up support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture is even more alarming for\u00a0the\u00a0Fund\u00a0for\u00a0Responding\u00a0to\u00a0Loss and Damage,\u00a0whose board met last week in Manila,\u00a0Philippines. By mid-2025, only about\u00a0US$788.8 million had been pledged globally to the dedicated Loss and Damage Fund, with US$582.5 million\u00a0in actual contributions. This is a fraction of what vulnerable countries\u00a0require, with losses and damages already measured in\u00a0hundreds\u00a0of billions of dollars annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic losses from just one week of extreme weather across multiple regions are likely to dwarf the value of the projects approved in Dushanbe. Every flood that washes away roads, every drought that destroys crops, every wildfire that consumes\u00a0homes\u00a0and every storm that damages hospitals\u00a0pushes\u00a0vulnerable countries further into debt while eroding decades of development gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Africa, countries are increasingly forced to divert scarce public resources towards disaster\u00a0response\u00a0instead of investing in health,\u00a0education\u00a0and economic transformation.\u00a0The answer\u00a0to this should\u00a0not simply\u00a0be\u00a0more emergency aid after disasters strike. It\u00a0should be\u00a0a\u00a0decisive shift towards financing resilience before disasters occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As governments\u00a0prepare for\u00a0COP31 and contributors negotiate the GCF\u2019s next replenishment, they must match their political ambition with financial ambition. Adaptation and resilience funding must\u00a0increase substantially, become\u00a0more\u00a0predictable\u00a0and reach local institutions much faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no point in just\u00a0sympathising\u00a0with communities on the climate frontline every time\u00a0disaster strikes. Communities need\u00a0a climate finance system that\u00a0recognises\u00a0the scale of today\u2019s crisis, not\u00a0yesterday\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As losses and damages continue to rise, resilience\u00a0is no longer just a climate\u00a0priority;\u00a0it is\u00a0the foundation of\u00a0development. Without it, the cost of inaction will continue to grow, measured not only in dollars but in lives,\u00a0livelihoods\u00a0and lost opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amos Wemanya is a Senior Climate Advisor and strategist at Power Shift Africa<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The approval of US$369 million in new climate adaptation finance for developing countries by the board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) signals a welcome shift towards building resilience in the world.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":5635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[28,26],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-5634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-adaptation","tag-climate-finance"],"acf":{"url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9507,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634\/revisions\/9507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5634"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powershiftafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=5634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}