We are excited to announce the launch of a new fund, Innovating for Climate Resilience, led by the Global Innovation Fund (GIF). This fund is launched in partnership with the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) and the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA), and has seed funding from UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO). Through the fund, we will invest in innovations with the potential to scale and that support people living on less than $5 per day to build resilience to shocks and stresses.
As climate induced shocks and stresses are the on rise, financing beyond climate change mitigation is urgently needed. Current devastations show us how essential it is to invest in ways to adapt to a changing climate. Droughts are causing the water taps in Mexico City to run dry, forcing millions of people to pay significantly more for tanker truck water deliveries. Torrential rain has triggered killer landslides in La Paz and Durban. Indian cities have been experiencing severe heatwaves in the last years with temperatures reaching as high as 50 degrees Celsius in 2020.
This burden falls most heavily on low- and middle-income countries, with income and access to public and financial services determining how communities are able to manage the direct and indirect effects of climate change. In 2020, we saw intense storms and flooding trigger three times more displacements than violent conflicts did in the same year. Climate shocks will continue to intensify, and the changes will be even more severe if the Paris Agreement targets are not met.
However, investment in the climate resilience and adaptation space suffers from multiple challenges. There is a lack of quality data and information, a limited understanding of the needs of affected countries and populations, and a perception that return on investment will be low. This has led to innovators and entrepreneurs focused on climate adaptation and resilience failing to attract the funding they need to test the effectiveness of their innovation.
Investments in this space can offer high returns – every dollar invested in adaptation could result in $2 to $10 in net economic benefits. The financing need is staggering but the bulk of funding is devoted to greenhouse gas mitigation and, within that, largely for renewable energy. This fund seeks to tackle this issue.
We are seeking innovations focused on climate adaptation and resilience to respond to the challenge of climate change.
Alix Zwane, GIF Chief Executive Officer, said, “We know from more than six years of investing for impact the critical role that innovation can play in confronting development challenges and building resilience in communities across the globe. Through the Innovating for Climate Resilience fund, we are excited to work with mission-aligned government to apply our evidence-based approach at the nexus of innovation and climate change. Our call for innovations is now live — if you are an innovator focused on climate adaptation and resilience in poorer countries with a commitment to the rigorous generation of evidence and impact at scale, we want to hear from you.”
To find out more about the Innovating for Climate Resilience fund and see if you could be a could fit for GIF investment visit the climate section of GIF’s website.