The past two years have seen the international community make a number of commitments to scale up climate finance flows, particularly to communities which are most vulnerable to climate and economic shocks.

At COP30, Parties made a political commitment to at least triple adaptation finance within ten years. The year before, Parties agreed the New Collective Quantified Goal to mobilise $300-billion a year by 2035 with a wider aim to scale up financing for climate action to $1.3-trillion a year over the same time frame. These milestones were reached at a time of decreasing development cooperation and shifting geopolitical priorities. With pressure to reach these targets growing while development finance becomes more constrained, this paper asks: what does efficient and strategic allocation of quality finance for adaptation looks like?

Definitions of quality are constantly evolving, varying depending on who is making the assessment and who is receiving the support. This paper argues for a nuanced picture that is able to balance different synergies and trade offs for ‘high-quality’ adaptation finance. The authors analyse eight key trade-offs between different dimensions of quality, which is intended to inform discussions on how adaptation finance can remain effective and just as pressure to do more with less becomes greater and greater.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute