In the midst of the discussions about the substantial gaps in finance for development and climate investments, there is a crucial missing piece that hampers our ability to achieve success: integrated strategies for low-carbon, climate-resilient development paths owned by the countries themselves.
It may come as a surprise that such comprehensive strategies do not currently exist, despite the urgent and growing challenges we face in both climate and development. Instead, the relevant components are scattered across different initiatives.
We have country strategies established separately with individual multilateral development banks, nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, for reducing emissions under the Paris Agreement, country-led Just Energy Transition Partnerships that primarily focus on the energy sector but can struggle to secure adequate funding, and the Country Climate and Development Reports, or CCDRs, produced by the World Bank to integrate climate and development analysis which are not strategies and do not establish targets or commitments.
About the author
Nancy Lee
Nancy Lee is a senior policy fellow and Director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development. Her work at CGD focuses on the role and performance of multilateral development banks and development finance institutions, mobilizing private development finance, blended finance, sovereign debt restructuring architecture, public-private infrastructure finance, and gender lens investing. Previously, she served as the deputy chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, as the CEO of the Multilateral Investment Fund (now the IDB Lab) at the Inter-American Development Bank, and before that as a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department.
