Country-Led Approaches: A Pathway to Scaling Adaptation Finance
As the impacts of climate change intensify, the need for adaptation finance has never been more urgent. Yet, adaptation remains significantly underfunded, receiving just 5% of the USD 1.46 trillion in global climate finance between 2021 and 2022. The gap is most pronounced for the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries: Least Developed Countries (LDCs) accounted for only 19% of adaptation finance, while Small Island Developing States (SIDS) secured a mere 2%.
Country-led programmatic approaches offer a compelling alternative to fragmented and short-term project-based models. These approaches — including country platforms — provide a coherent architecture for mobilizing domestic and international finance at scale, ensuring alignment with national priorities through long-term, coordinated strategies.
What are Country-Led Programmatic Approaches?
Country-led approaches are designed to move beyond fragmented, project-based models. While no single model fits all contexts, country-led programmatic approaches have several features that distinguish them from traditional, project-based models. They:
- Serve as vehicles to advance national development strategies and implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).
- Emphasize government ownership and multistakeholder governance.
- Drive investment prioritization, pipeline development and implementation, often through built-in project preparation facilities (PPFs).
- Blend public and private finance under a unified architecture.
Guidance for Countries
A forthcoming Policy Brief — commissioned by the Center for Access to Climate Finance (hosted by the NDC Partnership Support Unit) and developed by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) — will offer structured, yet flexible guidance to help countries navigate the complexities of climate investment planning and implementation.
Building on the Climate Investment Planning and Mobilization Framework (CIPMF) and its adaptation-focused supplement, the Policy Brief explores how programmatic, country-led approaches are enabling governments to plan, coordinate and mobilize adaptation finance more effectively and translate adaptation goals into investment pipelines and long-term financing strategies.
While most country platforms coordinate both mitigation and adaptation investments, this Policy Brief focuses specifically on adaptation finance, drawing lessons from country-led approaches that have demonstrated strong alignment with NAPs and resilience-building strategies in LDCs and SIDS.
The following are insights from the brief.
Country-Led Programmatic Approaches Through the Lens of the Climate Investment Planning and Mobilization Framework
Stage 1: Investment Planning and Mobilization Capacity
Effective country-led approaches begin with strong institutional anchoring — typically within ministries of finance, planning or the prime minister’s office — to ensure strategic alignment and cross-sectoral coordination. Legal mandates, such as government decrees, formalize their role. International partners often play a supportive role at this stage by providing seed funding, capacity building and technical assistance.
For example, the Bangladesh Climate and Development Partnership (BCDP) was established under the National Committee for Environment and Climate Change, chaired by the prime minister. The BCDP mobilizes domestic and external climate finance, develops project pipelines and integrates climate risk into fiscal planning. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) provided technical assistance and seed funding, while the Green Climate Fund (GCF) complements these efforts by providing readiness and policy support.
Stage 2: Identifying and Prioritizing Investment Needs
Most country-led approaches have completed national climate or sector investment frameworks that align NDCs, NAPs, and long-term strategies. They also increasingly use tools, such as climate risk assessments, cost-benefit analyses and investment gap studies to identify and prioritize adaptation investments. However, many LDCs and SIDS face data and capacity constraints, and few have climate-budget tagging systems in place to translate broad goals into specific, investable projects.
Brazil’s Climate and Ecological Transformation Investment Platform (BIP), building on the Brazilian government’s ecological transformation and climate plans, uses satellite monitoring, climate modelling and vulnerability data to select projects aligned with Brazil’s NDC and climate neutrality goals. It has already identified USD 10.8 billion in pilot investments.
Stage 3: Financing Strategy
A comprehensive financing strategy blends public and private capital, with public finance serving as a catalyst through concessional funds and guarantees. Yet many countries struggle with rigid funder frameworks and limited access to innovative instruments like green bonds or debt-for-climate swaps.
Countries are experimenting with diverse models: pooled funds (Bangladesh’s BDCP), green financing facilities (Jamaica’s Blue-Green Facility) and blended-finance approaches (Madagascar’s Climate Finance Mobilization Platform). Despite these innovations, most platforms remain dominated by public and funder finance, with limited private capital.
Stage 4: Programming with Finance Partners
Country–led programmatic approaches work to align finance partners under shared priorities — harmonizing timelines, reporting standards and investment criteria.
Bangladesh’s BCDP demonstrates how structured investment dialogues can strengthen coordination to create co-financing packages. Through thematic working groups, government and partners align project pipelines and match funding sources with national priorities through regular working group meetings.
Stage 5: Development of Projects and Programs
Project preparation remains a critical bottleneck. Many countries lack the capacity for feasibility studies, safeguards and financial structuring. While PPFs are planned in most country platforms, few are yet operational.
Kenya’s Financing Locally Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) program integrates project preparation into local governance. Counties receive climate funds only after completing risk assessments and adopting action plans, supported by national manuals and technical assistance.
Stage 6: Project and Program Implementation, Monitoring and Sustainability
Adaptation monitoring frameworks remain less developed than those for mitigation. Initial findings show that none of the mechanisms analyzed in LDCs and SIDS has achieved full maturity across all stages. Sustainability depends on predictable funding, durable governance and strong operational systems.
Platforms like BCDP and FLLoCA emphasize institutional resilience, with mechanisms to ensure continuity across political cycles. For example, the BCDP remained operational during a government transition sustained by civil service leadership and partner collaboration.
Key Takeaways
- Institutional anchoring is critically important for the effectiveness of country–led approaches. These platforms rooted in prime minister’s offices, ministries of finance or planning enable coordination, policy alignment and long-term sustainability.
- Project preparation enables countries to attract investment: Countries with dedicated PPFs or technical support can move from planning to investment, but many still lack these resources.
- Countries need to enhance data and evidence-based decisions: Lack of data availability and capacity gaps limit the ability to turn priorities into investment pipelines.
- Countries have had limited success in mobilizing private finance: All assessed country-led approaches aim to blend public and private capital, yet few have attracted private investment at scale due to limited de-risking instruments and bankable project pipelines.
- Partnerships underpin scale and continuity: Collaboration with development partners and climate funds has been vital in establishing country-led platforms, though better coordination, harmonised reporting and national ownership still need to improve.
Looking Ahead
As countries prepare their next round of NDCs and advance toward the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), these approaches provide a practical framework for translating ambition into action.
February 2026 update: The full Policy Brief is now published on the Center's webpage.
For More Information
To learn more about PPFs: visit the Project Preparation Support Database.
About the Center on Access to Climate Finance: The Center was established under the Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance, to leverage and amplify learning from the Taskforce by providing thought leadership, sharing best practices and facilitating global knowledge exchange to improve access to climate finance at the country and system levels.
