Our Engagements

Overview:

Financing climate action in cities and regions remains one of the most pressing challenges in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Despite growing recognition of the role of urban areas in delivering climate solutions, cities continue to face significant barriers in accessing the finance needed to implement their climate ambitions. The Roundtable on Multilevel Climate Financing for the Implementation of the NDCs in Cities and Regions aims to address these challenges by advancing a multilevel approach to climate finance that empowers cities and regions to deliver on
the NDCs.

Overview:

Hosted by the New Development Bank, the event will contribute to the broader discussions on accelerating adaptation finance and operationalizing the Global Goal on Adaptation.

The event will bring together perspectives from diverse stakeholders, including the Adaptation Fund, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the OPEC Fund for International Development, as well as country representatives (e.g., China, Brazil). The event aims to provide a dynamic and solution-oriented dialogue, facilitating discussions and generating insights that can strengthen collaboration across institutions, governments, and communities.

Adaptation Fund’s Main Side Event

Overview:

Climate-vulnerable nations and communities require scaled, predictable and equitable adaptation finance to protect lives and livelihoods from accelerating climate impacts. Under the Paris Agreement, Article 6 establishes new international carbon market mechanisms that can also generate resources for adaptation – creating a direct linkage between mitigation efforts and adaptation finance.

The session will highlight how high-integrity carbon markets, including those under Article 6 and voluntary carbon markets, can expand adaptation finance through the Adaptation Fund’s proven delivery modalities, advancing the goals of the Paris Agreement and the COP30 Presidency’s focus on implementation and equity.

Speakers: Adaptation Fund, Government, and CSO

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

This AF-TERG organized session will spotlight results from the recently concluded evaluation of the Adaptation Fund’s Readiness Programme. It will focus on sharing insights to distill the evaluation’s analytical outcomes and discuss implications for readiness programming, capacity building, and future Fund strategy.  

Register to watch online.

Country platforms are rapidly emerging as key mechanisms for mobilizing and aligning climate and development finance. This session will highlight how the world’s four largest multilateral funds – the Adaptation Fund, CIF, Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Green Climate Fund (GCF) are working together to support this process. The discussion will explore how these efforts can reinforce country-owned systems and generate coherent evidence to support national climate and broader development priorities.

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are key to guiding climate action and investment. This joint session by the Adaptation Fund and the NDC Partnership will present findings from a new study and Adaptation Supplement that support alignment and finance mobilization. Country examples and practical strategies will highlight how integrated planning can accelerate adaptation under the Paris Agreement.

Overview:

The Adaptation Fund’s Readiness Programme for Climate Finance aims to help strengthen the capacity of countries to directly receive and manage climate finance. This session will highlight the journey and next steps for the Adaptation Fund Readiness Programme in the Pacific. It brings voices from the Pacific together with Readiness Programme team members and evaluators to discussion how lessons learned can enhance support for Pacific countries and ensure the programme remains relevant and effective in meeting regional climate adaptation priorities.

Adaptation is not tomorrow’s priority; it is today’s urgent imperative. Yet while climate impacts accelerate, the flow of finance to help communities adapt remains far too small, too slow, and too centralized. Bridging this gap requires not just more money, but better finance: finance that reaches local actors, enables systemic change, and delivers lasting resilience.

This dialogue brings together the multilateral climate funds — the Adaptation Fund (AF), Climate Investment Funds (CIF), Green Climate Fund (GCF), and Global Environment Facility (GEF) — to discuss how they are driving a new wave of ambition and collaboration to scale adaptation finance.

Panelists will discuss how the funds are:

• Driving different scaling pathways to enhance both the reach and depth of impact
• Expanding access and mobilizing diverse sources of capital, and
• Working together to align, complement, and amplify their collective impact

In a rapidly changing climate and finance landscape, this session will spotlight what scaling adaptation finance looks like in practice — and how climate funds can serve as catalysts for resilience at scale, speed, and depth.

Joint session with Adaptation Fund, Global Environment Facility, Climate Investment Funds, and Green Climate Fund.

More information coming soon.

Overview:

Investing in women entrepreneurs and locally led innovation is delivering exponential returns—multiplying financial resources and unlocking triple-win outcomes for gender equality, green jobs, and climate resilience across the blue and green economies.

This dialogue convenes the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (World Bank), World Food Programme, Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator, and UNIDO’s Global Cleantech Innovation Programme to accelerate climate innovation and scale up finance for women entrepreneurs unlocking triple wins for gender, jobs, and climate.

Advancing Climate Resilient Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Lessons Learned from the Adaptation Fund Portfolio and New Financing Windows

Overview:

This session will highlight the Adaptation Fund’s work in advancing climate-resilient development across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The event will feature lessons learned from the Fund’s diverse portfolio of projects in the region and showcase the new financing windows and operational modalities introduced under its Second Medium-Term Strategy (MTS II, 2023–2027).

The discussion will emphasize innovative and transformative adaptation solutions that can be replicated and strengthen the capacity of recipient institutions to access available resources. Through presentations by experts from the Adaptation Fund Secretariat and Implementing Entities, the session will explore how different funding windows and operational modalities can support locally led and sustainable adaptation outcomes.

Speakers:

• Lucas di Pietro Paolo, Adaptation Fund Board
• Monica Corrales, Director of Sectoral, European and Multilateral Cooperation, AECID, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EU and Cooperation, Spain
• Claudia Godfrey, Director of Innovation & Strategic Management, Profonanpe, Peru
• Saliha Dobardzic, Programming and Innovation Unit Lead, Adaptation Fund
• Abil Castaneda, Executive Director, Protected Arias Conservation Trust (PACT), Belize

____

Promover el desarrollo resiliente al clima en América Latina y el Caribe: Lecciones aprendidas de la cartera del Fondo de Adaptación y las nuevas ventanas de financiación

Resumen:

Esta sesión destacará el esfuerzo del Fondo de Adaptación para impulsar el desarrollo resiliente al clima en América Latina y el Caribe (LAC). El evento presentará las lecciones aprendidas de la cartera de proyectos del Fondo en la región y mostrará las nuevas líneas de financiamiento y modalidades operativas introducidas en el marco de su Segunda Estrategia de Mediano Plazo (MTS II, 2023-2027).

La sesion hará hincapié en soluciones de adaptación innovadoras y transformadoras que pueden replicarse y fortalecer la capacidad de las instituciones beneficiarias para acceder a los recursos disponibles. Mediante presentaciones de expertos de la Secretaría del Fondo de Adaptación y de las Entidades Implementadoras, la sesión explorará cómo las diferentes líneas de financiamiento y modalidades operativas pueden apoyar resultados de adaptación sostenibles y liderados localmente.

Ponentes:

• Lucas di Pietro Paolo, Junta Directiva del Fondo de Adaptación
• Mónica Corrales, Directora de Cooperación Sectorial, Europea y Multilateral, AECID, Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación, España
• Claudia Godfrey, Directora de Innovación y Gestión Estratégica, Profonanpe, Perú
• Saliha Dobardzic, Lider de la Unidad de Programación e Innovación, Fondo de Adaptación
• Abil Castañeda, Director Ejecutivo, Fondo para la Conservación de Áreas Protegidas (PACT), Belice

More information coming soon.

Overview:

How can AI be leveraged to improve insights for climate finance decision-making and programming? A recently completed study explores this by using AI to enhance the synthesis of evidence from the four main climate change funds: Adaptation Fund, CIF, Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Green Climate Fund (GCF). This session will explore the findings of the exercise and discuss the future of AI use in evidence-based decision-making for climate change.

Overview:

This joint session brings together representatives from the evaluation and learning units of the Adaptation Fund, CIF, Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Green Climate Fund (GCF) to share experiences and insights on advancing resilience through climate finance. The discussion will focus on key resilience approaches such as nature-based solutions, ecosystem-based adaptation, locally led adaptation, and supporting indigenous peoples and communities. Through their respective evaluations, the Funds will showcase successful strategies, lessons learned and highlight challenges and opportunities for scaling up resilient adaptation. 

Climate change projects face a critical challenge: how to move from successful pilots to impactful, large-scale solutions that benefit communities worldwide. Scaling is not just a buzzword—it is the bridge between innovation and lasting change. Through stories from the ground, this joint AF-TERG and AFB Secretariat event will show what scaling is taking place in Adaptation Fund supported projects and evidence on which factors are supporting the successful scaling of results.

Overview:

This session explores how Locally-Led Adaptation mechanisms can serve to overcome barriers for climate resilience by accessing climate finance. Locally-led solutions for adaptation serve to empower women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities through strong local governance and capacity building that provide a space for South-led innovation. This event aligns with COP30’s focus on inclusion, Indigenous Peoples, and local action in Brazil.

Organized by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Adaptation Fund (AF)

Overview:

This high-level event provides an opportunity for contributor governments to express their support and announce new pledges to the Adaptation Fund to help meet its 2025 resource mobilization target from a floor of USD 300 million, advancing the COP30 goal of increasing adaptation finance.

More information coming soon.

Overview:

Even as global commitments to nature and biodiversity multiply, less than 5% of climate finance reaches fragile or high-risk contexts. This high-level dialogue, co-hosted by UNHCR and ICC, will explore the institutional and financial innovations needed to bridge this gap. 

Speakers will examine blended finance models, public–private partnerships, and regulatory frameworks that can scale biodiversity and ecosystem investment in regions most exposed to climate and humanitarian stress. 

The session will highlight pathways to turn global pledges into operational portfolios that combine environmental integrity, financial performance, and social inclusion. 

Speakers:

• Sandra Hanni, Trade & Climate Lead, ICC – moderation 
• Pilar Pedrinelli, UNHCR, REP Fund Lead – Innovative Financing Officer  
• Katerina Elias-Trostmann, Salesforce – Director Americas, Climate & Nature Strategy 
• Maya Rajasekharan – CGIAR, Managing Director for the Americas 
• Gareth Phillips – African Development Bank Group, Manager Climate and Environmental Finance 
• Saliha Dobardzic – Adaptation Fund, Lead, Programming and Innovation Unit 

The role of local, traditional and indigenous knowledge in adaptation is well established, with a special relation to environmental sustainability and use of nature-based solutions to build resilience. In advancing adaptation for and by indigenous and local communities, there are particular considerations that need to be reflected, and that come into play in the various stages of engagement and support involving climate finance: in addition to programmes that provide grant funding to such communities to finance locally-led adaptation action, this includes support at technical and readiness level, building capacities to successfully access and deploy climate finance, as well as extending opportunities to generate innovative approaches that build upon or draw from local, traditional and indigenous knowledge.

Capturing and sharing knowledge around innovative approaches to adaptation is key to
disseminating successful approaches beyond geographies where there are already established, and an important part to accelerating adaptation in ways that are sustainable and culturally and socially relevant.

This session will highlight how the Adaptation Fund is working with and for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities – supporting their leadership, traditional knowledge, and locally driven adaptation solutions. It will feature outcomes from recent dialogues such as Adaptation Futures 2025 and CBA19, reflecting on how these global conversations have advanced recognition of Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge in adaptation policy and practice. The discussion will announce new AF programmes and showcase upcoming opportunities for support to Indigenous and local communities, building on lessons learned and achievements in advancing innovation through Indigenous and community leadership. This event aligns with COP30’s focus on inclusion, Indigenous Peoples, and local action.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

Overview:

Ex post evaluations are aimed at learning how adaptation benefits evolve over time and if and how these continue to support local resilience beyond project completion. This event marks the official launch of the two new ex post evaluations of Adaptation Fund supported projects in Cuba and Ghana. AF-TERG and the AFB Secretariat will come together to discuss the role of ex posts and how they contribute to overall learning for the Adaptation Fund.  

Scaling Locally-Led Land Restoration for Climate, Community and Food System
Resilience in the Sahel: from local success to global influence

The Sahel is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions, facing land degradation and food insecurity.
Local communities are leading impactful climate action through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) and sustainable land-use practices.

These efforts restore ecosystems, build resilience, and support the Paris Agreement and Global Goal on Adaptation.
Despite their success, locally-led solutions remain under-recognized and underfunded globally.

This event will spotlight adaptation stories from the Sahel and advocate for stronger policy and financial support.

Overview:

Understanding the impact of adaptation investments is not just beneficial – it is an essential risk-mitigation strategy for global climate finance. But there is scare evidence on the effectiveness and sustainability of these investments. Ex post evaluations aim to address this issue by going back to projects years after they have closed to see what results have been sustained. This event will showcase ex post evaluations of Adaptation Fund projects. Bringing together funders, implementing entities, and the evaluators, this session aims to provide valuable learnings on pathways to genuine, sustained resilience for the communities these interventions are designed to protect.