Assessing the distributive equity of adaptation finance: a framework

Zoha Shawoo, Katherine Browne, Nella Canales and Anisha Nazareth

Climate Policy, 2025, vol. 25, issue 9, 1397-1412

Abstract: Distributive equity is a question of who gets what. In international adaptation finance, it is broadly agreed that those who are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to the impacts of climate change are most deserving of the financial support to adapt. To date, however, most analysis of whether and how adaptation finance reaches the vulnerable has occurred at the global scale. This paper develops a framework for assessing distributive equity of adaptation finance at the national and sub-national levels. Based on a two-part review, we identify different definitions, principles and elements of distributive equity that adaptation finance providers can consider and strive for based on their end goal. Overall, the paper finds that designing and implementing adaptation finance to account for the root causes of vulnerability is critical for advancing distributive equity. As such, our framework goes beyond conventional conceptualizations of distributive equity, which focus primarily on the allocation of finance to vulnerable groups, to also consider how adaptation finance is utilized and implemented. This includes, for example, considering whether adaptation finance is enhancing access to resources, enhancing capabilities and opportunities of groups, ensuring social protection, protecting human rights, addressing intersectionality, enabling decolonization, and addressing unequal power dynamics. We also find that existing adaptation finance providers are largely falling short in considering all of the elements of this framework, and propose pathways forward for how they could better advance distributive equity below the global level.Distributive equity of adaptation finance needs to be considered below the global level to account for whether finance is reaching the most vulnerable groups within vulnerable countries.Adaptation measures will be limited in achieving distributive equity if they only focus on finance allocation, and should also account for how finance is being used to tackle the root causes of vulnerability.Adaptation finance providers should prioritize measures that enhance access to resources, support social protection schemes, enhance the capabilities and opportunities of groups, and lead to the protection of human rights.Funding measures that are intersectional, redress existing unequal power dynamics, and repair historical harm is more likely to enable longer-term vulnerability reduction.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2025.2456552

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