Across the world, countries with the most limited resources to respond to the climate crisis are dealing with some of its worst impacts. For countless communities, the shortfall in funds required to adapt to a toxic mix of rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and shock climate events is threatening their future existence. The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility, designed by the UN Capital Development Fund, seeks to address this urgent need by channelling finance to the community level for locally led adaptation to climate change. For five days in May, countries designing or implementing their LoCAL adaptation actions are meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to share knowledge, experience and develop strategic priorities for the coming year and beyond.

The LoCAL Facility is a flexible mechanism for channelling climate finance to the subnational level so that communities can implement the adaptation actions they identify and have prioritised for adaptation to climate change that best meets their needs. Designed and piloted in Bhutan and Cambodia over ten years ago, today LoCAL is a global mechanism that has mobilised over US$ 155 million for thousands of small-scale yet big-impact adaptation projects, with most of those funds raised and dispersed in the last three years.

“This tenth board meeting is a milestone event for the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility,” said H.E. Agnes Mary Chimbiri Molande, Co-chair of the LoCAL Board and global coordinator of the Bureau for the Least Developed Country Group and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative of the Republic of Malawi to the United Nations. “We have a full decade of shared experience under our belts and a truly global mechanism for climate finance delivery in place – Brussels 2023 is an opportunity for us to coordinate and align our priorities for maximum impact.”

The 10th Annual LoCAL Board takes place in Brussels on the 11th May, bringing together representatives from 34 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific. The Board is an opportunity to examine results from the previous year and define future priorities. LoCAL ministers are schedule to meet on the 12th of May for policy development and strategizing, while a preceding workshop and dialogue is tabled to build capacity in climate negotiations and examine opportunities in existing and prospecting adaptation funding streams. To push priorities at the international level, some 11 ministers from LoCAL countries have volunteered as LoCAL Ambassadors.

All the nations gathering in Brussels share a common threat not of their own making: climate change. All need to urgently adapt, yet lack the resources needed to adequately meet the challenge. Many LoCAL countries are among the world’s least developed - 27 LoCAL countries are Least Developed Countries; or they’re Small Island Developing States, or African nations. These countries are not industrialised, many of their populations remain largely rural; their production of the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change are relatively insignificant.

LoCAL countries have repeatedly called for more international climate finance to meet their adaptation needs. In 2009, industrialised nations promised to deliver US$ 100 bn a year from 2020 onwards for spending on adaptation to climate change and mitigate further temperature rises. To date, that commitment has not been kept and LoCAL implementing countries and their populations see the consequences of the funding shortfall every day. While LDCs and low-income climate vulnerable nations say that adaptation remains their most pressing need, mitigation finance is the largest share of climate-specific support from developed to developing nations, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In addition, only a small proportion of funds are directed to national and sub-national authorities for climate action. In terms of climate finance through multi-lateral funds, national and regional institutions total more than half of all accredited entities yet account for only 10% of all financial outflows, according to the UNFCCC.

This year’s Board is meeting under the theme ‘Making the climate finance infrastructure work for the people’. On the 8th and 9th of May, climate negotiators from LoCAL countries are invited to a special UNITAR-designed workshop to boost their influence in international forums. On the 10th May, a dialogue between experienced LoCAL-implementing countries, countries still in the design phase of developing their LoCAL actions and partners is scheduled to assess opportunities for rapidly increasingly access to climate finance.

LoCAL offers a standard and internationally recognized country-based mechanism to channel climate finance to local government authorities for adaptation efforts. The LoCAL Mechanism combines Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRGs) that ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level. At the same time, LoCAL offers strong incentives for performance improvements in enhanced resilience through technical and capacity-building support, as well as monitoring and quality assurance. The LoCAL mechanism and LoCAL country experience informed the ISO 14093, published last year at COP27.

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