Anissa Bougrea

Multilateral Development Banks are under growing pressure to expand climate finance, especially for adaptation — yet the structural barriers embedded in their lending models, data systems, and risk frameworks continue to limit meaningful progress. As part of the Think20 (T20) process under the South Africa G20 Presidency, Nicolas Gate and I contributed a policy brief that examines these systemic constraints and outlines a path toward more transparent, locally grounded, and impactful adaptation finance.

Our brief — “MDB Reform for More and Better Climate Finance: Data, Allocation, Local Ownership and Impact” — argues that MDB reform must go beyond balance-sheet optimisation. It needs to tackle the deeper misalignments in adaptation metrics, improve climate finance data ecosystems, and strengthen locally led financing structures. It also needs to take into account country variation and abandon its one-size-fits-all approach. We propose practical interventions for the G20, including integrating national taxonomies into MDB tracking systems, establishing a global adaptation finance data platform, and creating dedicated concessional windows for adaptation.

With the G20 Leaders’ Summit taking place in South Africa from 22–25 November, we are happy that this contribution has supported a more grounded and equitable debate on MDB reform and climate resilience.

You can read the full policy brief below.