Climate funds fail to get finance to family farmers, COP29 told

The report by Family Farmers for Climate Action, an alliance of farmer organisations representing over 50 million farmers in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific, looked at spending by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). It concludes that family farmers are shut out of decision-making and have no direct access to finance.

It claims that analysis of 40 GEF and GCF climate and biodiversity projects which listed farmers as beneficiaries revealed no finance went directly to family farmers or their organisations, while less than a fifth of projects (18%) included farmers in decision making on project priorities, design, and implementation.  

GCF and GEF manage climate finance contributions from donor countries, regions and cities. GCF, the world’s largest climate fund, has committed US$15 billion to adaptation and mitigation projects to date. GEF, which serves as a fund for the 3 UN Conventions on Climate, Biodiversity and Desertification, has invested over US$25 billion. 

Multiple barriers​

The researchers identified multiple barriers are built into GCF and GEF processes which prevent grassroots organisations accessing funds including complex, time-consuming application processes. GCF funding applications require up to 22 supporting documents including, in one case, criminal background checks on all the farmers organisations employees. 

Just a third of the $2.6 billion which GEF and GCF spent on agriculture, fishing, and forestry between 2019-22 was used to help small-scale farmers to adopt sustainable, climate resilient practices even though they produce 70% of food consumed in Africa and up to 80% in Asia and are central to global supply chains for commodities such as rice and coffee.

Esther Penunia, secretary general of the Asian Farmers Association (AFA) complaints the two biggest climate funds do not recognise the value of grassroots farmer organisations. “They don't benefit from our experience and expertise or our unique ability to scale up climate action across millions of family farms,” she says. “Their restrictive policies ensure we have no meaningful control over how we adapt and build climate resilience. This blinkered approach is holding back the fight against hunger and climate change."

“It is difficult to see how a just and sustainable rural transition will happen without direct financing of small-holder farmer organisations,” adds Duncan Macqueen, director of forests at the International Institute for Environment and Development adds. “Unclogging GEF and GCF pipes to ensure that at least some finance reaches the farmers who produce our food is critical.”

Why is climate finance top of the agenda for COP29?​

Agreeing an ambitious new climate finance goal is top of the agenda for COP29. According to Family Farmers for Climate Action, creating a more resilient and sustainable food system will cost an estimated $200-500 billion a year but will generate benefits for health, livelihoods and the environment of between $5-10 trillion a year. 

Ensuring the available finance is well spent is equally important, the group says. It claims just 14% ($1.3 billion) of international public climate finance for agriculture and land use was targeted at small-scale farmers in 2021-2022. This is a fraction of a fraction of the estimated $170 to $189 billion needed annually. 

Other groups suggest $151 billion is needed annually to close a ‘critical’ climate finance gap​ for smallholder farmers.

Finance is needed, the campaigners claim, as extreme and erratic weather is damaging harvests from Southern Africa where a “once in a century" drought has wiped out 70% of Zambia’s harvest, to Asia where storms and floods have damaged over 50,000 hectares of farmland in the Philippines.

“We need an ambitious finance deal in COP29 to safeguard our food system and ensure everyone has enough to eat in a changing climate,” says Stephen Muchiri, CEO of Eastern African Farmers Federation. “It's equally important that any available finance is well spent. This means getting finance direct to family farmers and to sustainable, resilience approaches that the science shows are key to adaptation.”