As a global phenomenon with many different challenges across borders, climate change is an issue that naturally requires coordinated action around the world. One type of coordinated action that is key in the fight against climate change is the international development sector. To avoid using these terms as a vaguely defined catch-all concept (at the risk of causing widely different interpretations among people not acquainted with the sector), international development should here be thought of as a term referring to the global sector consisting of all the programmes, projects and initiatives funded and implemented among countries to help themselves develop economically and socially, particularly those most in need of support (example: those with little or no access to healthcare and education, humanitarian aid and especially those in situations of conflict, famine, and/or those recovering from devastating natural disasters). These interventions range from the management of emergency humanitarian aid to programmes focused on delivering infrastructure works as well as technical assistance to agriculture and industry sectors in need of support for development, with the latter often delivered in the form of training and capacity-building programmes and as part of overarching bilateral and multilateral agreements struck among countries. These are understood here to be the fruit of international cooperation between governments and the outcome of diplomatic efforts to achieve common objectives and policy priorities mutually agreed among them, which are then funded and implemented through private sector and not-for-profit contractors in the form of programmes, projects and initiatives or assignments financed by multilateral and bilateral donors (e.g.: national development agencies like Australian Aid, the French Agency for Development, etc.; multilateral organisations like the European Union; development banks like the German KfW, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, among others).
With the continued rise in concerns over the impacts of climate change worldwide, and the certainty of findings in climate science over the past few decades, it has become clear that international development work should not only focus on objectives centered around economic development but also on preserving nature (sustainable development) and thus on helping us secure a better future for humanity, against the increasingly high temperature and frequent unstable climate pattern projections that threaten human existence in the long term. As a result, development programmes and agreements struck among governments and international organisations have tended to dedicate a growing role to sustainable development objectives (not least as part of commitments made under the auspices of the United Nations agreements and in the framework of its Sustainable Development Goals), even though, from a practitioner’s perspective, this focus has yet to bear fruit at large as part of international development projects and programmes.
If we look at climate change issues that need to be addressed both by authorities locally and by international cooperation for sustainable development, there are many that are intricate and intertwined and that require as much urgent and corrective action as carefully devised and strategically designed interventions focused on disaster prevention and climate change mitigation, in coordination with all ongoing and planned actions to ensure that our transition to a net-zero future is a just and inclusive one. Among these are (in order of seriousness and wider impact): greenhouse gas emissions, first and foremost, and irrespective of the source of emissions (though in order of their impact at scale, industrial fossil fuel emissions, followed by transport, heating and cooling powered by fossil fuels); water scarcity and water supply systems, particularly in naturally dry climate regions and also around big urban metropoles as the hubs of global production and with large populations, not to mention the threat of rising sea levels and natural disasters, particularly in at-risk locations (e.g.: Pacific Rim, South Asia) and also in coastal and highly populated locations (again, large coastline urban centres and their vicinities). Then, there is the ever-uncertain impact of continued deforestation in key tropical rainforests and sustainable exploitation of forest resources that need to be tackled as priorities that require substantial time and investment to implement via, e.g.: conservation, sustainable agro-forestry practices like managing tropical resources (soil, tree roots, plants, fruits, etc.) and the relevant policies to eliminate the need for further deforestation and destabilization of strategically important climate regions that act as key regulators of inland and ocean-based greenhouse gas emissions as well as wind currents, rainfall and related moisture and temperature variations (e.g.: Amazon rainforest and river basin, Sub-Saharan African and South Asian rainforests as well as related impact on other key regions outside the tropics such as the Gulf Stream, the Arctic circle and Antarctica, the Saharan Desert, among others).
Conversely, there are also multiple challenges in the international development sector which naturally have an impact on societies’ ability to deal with climate change, for instance:
- Disbursement of funds and/or deployment of capital committed to fight climate change, particularly in developing countries (the “Global South”), given its current drastically low and insufficient rate of absorption/investment to support countries with pressing needs for climate change adaptation and mitigation
- Lack of coherence of humanitarian aid with overall local needs in the fight against CC (e.g.: importing rice or other basic foodstuffs provided on a massive scale by the United Nations or other sources for emergency purposes in places of need, which are at odds with the logic of producing locally – or as locally as possible)
- Current model of development promoted via international development aid (including in other areas other than climate change and humanitarian aid) is counterproductive to climate change mitigation and adaptation, e.g.: focused on economic growth with no or little requirement for impact measurement, management and reporting of sustainable development outcomes and indicators, including when it comes to ensuring a just transition and inclusiveness in achieving growth objectives (i.e.: often private sector development-focused only and with sustainability objectives that are considered of secondary in programmes funded and with no mandatory reporting). This model tends to disproportionately favour either locally established companies or organisations already active in the target countries or even more established companies (or similarly well-established not-for-profit organisations) from developed countries, with low impact on the development of new, sustainable initiatives or robust support structures in target countries – and thus few ‘grassroots champions’ promoted apart from isolated, fledgling initiatives with weak support structures to sustain further start-up or business growth initiatives developed as part of aid programmes.
There is hence an urgent need to re-orient programmes towards more effective and accountable impact measurement, management (particularly monitoring & evaluation) and reporting against climate objectives, with a further reflection on the need for ensuring and measuring accountability in recipient countries with either little or no structure and system in place for requiring and demanding governments to commit to and report on climate objectives – via, for example, Nationally Determined Contributions by governments as part of international climate negotiations. There is also a need – and significant opportunity – to include the private sector in accountability schemes to report and help the public sector to establish requirements for businesses (resources permitting) to report more effectively on emissions reductions as part of their production processes, including within their supply chains and operations in countries that are either aid recipients or even those classified as “middle income” countries, since many of these still significant challenges in socio-economic development (e.g.: most Latin American countries and many “middle-income” countries in Asia).
It is essential that action on the above items needs to happen in a coordinated way among donor countries, first and foremost, so that a common framework – or as closely defined a framework – can be designed for managing and reporting on progress made towards NDCs or other similar objectives agreed with recipient countries. Along with this could also be a requirement for such objectives to be set in direct contact and collaboration with recipient countries in order to ensure that these are adopted voluntarily and that aid is not given freely without any requirements from beneficiaries.
On the other end of the spectrum, donor countries themselves should seek to show a greater commitment in the decarbonization of their own economies, including considering not only more sustainable production but also more sustainable consumption patterns and standard-setting in their economies. Otherwise, they risk losing credibility in such types of initiatives as described above. More importantly, development aid should not be used as a way to support donor countries’ industries for export or market entry purposes in recipient countries but rather as a way to give value to sustainable practices already present and at risk of being lost in recipient countries, e.g.: natural resources at risk of being extinguished from large-scale mass production processes in industry and agriculture and from the negative impact on the environment and society from related issues (e.g.: loss of natural habitats, ecosystems, and biodiversity; dislocation and/or eradication of indigenous and traditional subsistence-based populations and associated loss of knowledge and human capital in these across all aspects of life, i.e.: healthcare, education and culture).
If you’ve found this article informative and are curious to know more, then these are some more links that you can check out:
Poorer countries set to be ‘increasingly dependent’ on food imports, says UN food agency report (United Nations) https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/07/1013872
Examples of agroforestry initiatives:
‘I used to see them as a bunch of rioters’: Brazil’s radical farmers (The Guardian)
‘Either we change or we die’: the radical farming project in the Amazon (The Guardian)
COP27: como a economia da ‘floresta em pé’ pretende explorar as riquezas da Amazônia (BBC – in Portuguese-BR)
New approach to the European Union’s funding for development aid with more focus on SDGs:
The EU’s Global Gateway – sustainable and trusted connections that work for people and the planet. It helps to tackle the most pressing global challenges, from fighting climate change, to improving health systems, and boosting competitiveness and security of global supply chains. (EU)
Global Gateway as new approach, not simple funding pot (EUROACTIV)
