Opinions

Russia is a child-killer. But what about Israel, Mr Guterres?

The UN chief’s refusal to add Israel to its child-murderer list shows that to it, Palestinian kids matter less than others.

• 
  
  Andrew Mitrovica

  Al Jazeera columnist

Published On 29 Jun 20229 Jun 2023

Mourners carry the body of Palestinian boy Mohammad al-Tamimi who died of his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces [Mohammed Torokman/Reuters]

Little Mohammad al-Tamimi must have been excited.

Twilight on June 2 was slowly slipping into night when the two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, with a shock of light brown hair, got into his father’s car parked outside their home in Nabi Saleh, a village northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

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Haitham al-Tamimi and his son were headed to a niece’s birthday party. Sweet treats, family and fun were on the menu. Moments later, the car was engulfed by bullets fired by Israeli soldiers stationed at a nearby checkpoint.

Mohammad’s mother, Marwa, rushed out of the house. “My husband was trying to drive the car to move it away from the direction of the shooting,” she said. All the frantic while, a wounded Haitham cried out for his badly injured son: “Hamoudi, Hamoudi.”

Mohammad had been shot in the head. “I was sure he was killed. It was clear because I saw his head was bleeding,” Marwa remembered.

Mohammad was airlifted to a Tel Aviv hospital. Four days later – strapped to a tangle of tubes and monitors – he was dead. His father survived.

At first, predictably, Israeli officials blamed “Palestinian crossfire” for the shooting of two innocents. Then, again predictably, their story shifted. Now, it was “unclear” who was responsible. An “investigation” was opened. Finally, another predictable admission: an Israeli soldier had shot the pair.

Mohammad al-Tamimi’s killing was a “mistake”, an Israeli official said. Another lethal “mistake” in a catalogue of lethal “mistakes” Israeli soldiers have made again and again that have claimed the lives of Palestinian after Palestinian – young and old.

And like the litany of “mistake”-prone Israeli soldiers, the gunman who blasted a bullet into Mohammad al-Tamimi’s skull will not be punished for killing a child.

Twenty-seven Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank have already been killed by Israeli forces this year. Mohammad al-Tamimi was the youngest. In 2022, 42 Palestinian children were killed and 933 injured by the Israeli military. In 2021, Israeli forces killed 78 Palestinian children and injured another 982.

Among the living, four out of five Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip suffer from chronic depression, sadness and fear caused by the 16-year Israeli blockade of the besieged territory.

By any humane measure, those figures are a breathtaking reflection of Israel’s long, shameful record of killing and maiming Palestinian children in body, mind and spirit.

Although accurate, “shameful” is not the word United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is eager to use to describe the horror of what happened to Mohammad al-Tamini and other Palestinian kids Israeli soldiers have disfigured and killed year after year.

That hypocrisy was made plain last week when, despite the entreaties of a slew of human rights organisations, Guterres chose, once more, not to include Israel in its “list of shame” – a blacklist of “parties to armed conflict who commit grave violations against children”.

Russia made it onto this year’s ledger. Guterres was moved to add Russia’s regular forces and mercenaries after he was “shocked” and “appalled by the high number of grave violations against children in Ukraine” in 2022.  It marked the first time one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council joined the blacklist.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia deserves it. Three teenagers were among at least 11 people killed by a Russian missile strike on a popular pizzeria in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday evening. That outrage, alone, confirmed Russia’s place on the UN’s roster of shame.

Yet, apparently, Guterres was not “shocked” or “appalled” enough to break with precedent further and finally acknowledge that Israel’s soldiers are as guilty as Russia’s soldiers in “committing grave violations against children”.

Rather than admit the truth, the UN chief preferred instead to reach for the diplomatic corps’s reliable handbook of stock, limp bromides.

“I remain deeply concerned by the number of children killed and maimed by Israeli forces during hostilities and through the use of live ammunition,” Guterres wrote on June 5.

The secretary general repeated that he was “deeply concerned” by Israel’s “excessive use of force against children” three times over two meandering, euphemism-filled paragraphs.

Guterres compounded his blatant double-standard by suggesting, obscenely, that Israel had earned some consideration for having killed and maimed fewer Palestinian children in 2022 than it did the year before.

I can imagine the scene as Guterres huddled with his advisers to help prepare his latest report, carefully calibrated not to offend Israel.

Guterres: What the terrible Russians and their proxies are doing to Ukrainian children is shameful and appalling. Agreed?

Adviser 1: Agreed.

Adviser 2: Mr secretary general, just playing devil’s advocate here. But what about the deep and lasting damage the terrible Israelis and their proxies have done and continue to do to so many Palestinian children?

Guterres: Yes that’s terrible but it’s also a tricky one, isn’t it?

Advisers 1 and 2: Yes, it’s tricky all right.

Guterres: Well, “appalled” and “shameful” are definitely out. Otherwise, the White House or worse, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will make my life miserable.

Advisers 1 and 2: Good point.

Guterres: So, “deeply concerned” it is. It’s meaningless but it’s the best we can do. Anyway, it’s not the first meaningless thing I’ve had to say, right?

Advisers 1 and 2: Noted. Russia – bad, very bad. Israel – “deeply concerned.” Sounds about right.

Still, I wonder, in the UN’s calculus, when does the killing and maiming of children by soldiers tip from “deeply concerning” into “appalling” and “shameful”?

What is the mysterious threshold?

Is it a round number? Is it a question of intent? What is the precise nature and scope of the killing and maiming of Palestinian children that must occur before the UN secretary general determines that Israel’s fatal actions warrant being denounced as “appalling” and “shameful”?

Or could it be that the nationality of the soldiers doing the maiming and killing is the deciding factor?

Whatever the litmus test, even Human Rights Watch (HRW) – the darling of most Western news organisations and capitals – has concluded that Guterres should have put Israel on the “list of shame” years ago.

Israel “belongs on the list”, HRW wrote. Its “omission” not only “sends a mixed message about the UN’s willingness to hold powerful governments accountable” but “does a grave disservice to Palestinian children”.

Palestine’s ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, called Guterres’s decision to leave Israel off the shame list a “big mistake”.

Beyond being a “big mistake” and a “grave disservice to Palestinian children”, this cowardice may be the sad, inevitable price the UN’s top diplomats are willing to pay to keep their important jobs, and the perks and privileges that go with them.

After all, diplomats, like the rest of us, have to pick their battles.

Does anyone believe that Guterres, or any UN secretary general for that matter, would volunteer to fall on their cushy petard in defence of the fast-fading memory of Mohammad al-Tamimi or the many other Palestinian children killed – by “mistake,” of course – by Israel?

No, I didn’t think so.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

---

• 
  Andrew Mitrovica

  Al Jazeera columnist

  Andrew Mitrovica is an Al Jazeera columnist based in Toronto.

Toronto: Challenges of AI, technology’s impact on democracy discussed at Collision Tech Conference

ANI
29 June, 2023 

Tech Conference titled "How is Tech reshaping Democracy?" concludes in Toronto (Photo Credit: Twitter/@CollisionHQ)

Toronto [Canada], June 29 (ANI): A conference titled “How is Tech reshaping Democracy?” was held at Enercare Center, Toronto, which discussed technology’s huge impact on democracy and access to information to common people.

The Collision Tech conference was organised here on Tuesday at 11 am (local time) in which Anita Sharma, CTV News and Freelancer took part as a moderator. Commissioner of the US Federal Election Commission Ellen Weintraub and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party Melissa Lantsman were the panellists at the conference.

The conference also discussed the technology’s huge impact on democracy and access to information to common people, freedom of speech, and internet freedom and also addressed the challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Anita Sharma, in relation to India, said that with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the US and with Tech Titans, the US is sending a message to China that technology is transforming and that the US is finding a new partner in India.

With regard to China, Sharma said China’s premier coming out saying China still wants to be America’s factory and warehouse and wants to work with America ignoring the geopolitical issues.

Meanwhile, Melissa Lantsman said that human rights abuses against Uyghurs in China, allegations of interference in Canadian elections and the regime in Beijing’s hostage diplomacy with Canada have posed some bigger questions on Canada’s relationships with China.

She mentioned India having huge young talents and Canada’s welcoming approach towards them.

She emphasised that if Canada wants to be the leader of Technological change then Canada should be partnering with countries like India which have shared values.


She added that Canada has lost core diplomatic relations with India and stressed that Canada’s relationship with India “should have been better, they could have been better and again one day they will be better.”

In her concluding remarks, Anita said that the US is deeply involved with India and Silicon Valley is proof of that.

 (ANI)

This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

World entering 'period of uncertainty' as AI makes advances: Hinton

TORONTO — The so-called 'godfather of artificial intelligence' said the world is entering a period of huge uncertainty as the technology he pioneered gets even smarter, more ubiquitous and in need of people working to counter its risks.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

Geoffrey Hinton, known as the 'Godfather of AI', joins a moderated discussion at the Collision conference in Toronto on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — The so-called 'godfather of artificial intelligence' said the world is entering a period of huge uncertainty as the technology he pioneered gets even smarter, more ubiquitous and in need of people working to counter its risks.

"We have to take seriously the possibility that they get to be smarter than us, which seems quite likely, and they have goals of their own, which seems quite likely," Geoffrey Hinton said at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on Wednesday.

"They may well develop the goal of taking control, and if they do that we're in trouble."

Hinton, who won the A.M. Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize of computing, in 2018 with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, has been ringing alarm bells about AI for months as it has been adopted by more companies in the wake of ChatGPT's creation.

The generative AI chatbot capable of humanlike conversations and tasks was developed by San Francisco-based OpenAI and joins an AI race with other top tech names including Google and its rival product Bard. 

British-Canadian computer scientist Hinton and two of his Toronto students built a neural network in 2012 that could analyze photos and identify objects, which they incorporated and sold to Google for $44 million.

Hinton announced in May that he had left Google so he could more freely discuss the dangers of AI.

On Wednesday, he outlined six harms the technology poses, including bias and discrimination, joblessness, echo chambers, fake news, battle robots and existential risk.

Much of his worry comes from the big advances AI has been making, as he long thought the technology was much further away from being capable of reasoning.

"They still can't match us, but they're getting close," Hinton said. 

"The big language models are getting close and I don't really understand why they can do it, but they can do little bits of reasoning."

 

He gave an example of a puzzle that was presented to an AI model. The puzzle was told that the rooms in a house are blue, yellow or white, but that yellow paint fades to white within a year. The AI model was asked: if someone wants all the rooms to be white within two years, what should they do?

The AI said to paint the blue rooms white because blue won't fade to white, said Hinton: "It knew what I should do and it knew why." 

Proponents of the technology herald these developments as a sign that AI is mastering efficiency and expediency and could free humans of rudimentary tasks. They worry governments could overregulate the technology, reducing its benefits greatly.

Others, including Hinton, have predicted it will lead to “an existential risk.”

In March, more than 1,000 technology experts, including engineers from Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, as well as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, called for a six-month pause on training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, the large language model behind ChatGPT.

Hinton's fellow "godfather" and A.M. Turing winner LeCun has reasoned that good AI will be developed and used to outpower any AI with bad intentions.

Hinton disagrees.

"I'm not convinced that a good AI that is trying to stop bad AI can get control," he said.

To counter such risks, he called on more people to focus on the situations the technology could create and on how to counter and avoid them.

"Right now, there's 99 very smart people trying to make (AI) better and one very smart person trying to figure out how to stop it from taking over."

Hours before Hinton's talk to a full room, he walked the conference floor unrecognized by the event’s 36,000 guests, wearing an N95 mask and his name tag turned backwards to hide his name.

He stopped at a booth for the Vector Institute, an AI research not-for-profit he co-founded.

Ontario announced Wednesday morning that the institute will receive up to $27 million to help “accelerate the safe and responsible adoption of ethical AI" and help small and medium-sized businesses increase their competitiveness with the emerging technology. 

Speaking at Collision the same day, Canada's industry minister said the country is "ahead of the curve" with its approach to artificial intelligence, beating even the European Union.

"Canada is likely to be the first country in the world to have a digital charter where we're going to have a chapter on responsible AI because we want AI to happen here," François-Philippe Champagne said.

The proposed charter — part of Bill C-27 — would ban "reckless and malicious" AI use, establish oversight by a commissioner and the industry minister, and impose financial penalties.

The bill still has to pass a House of Commons committee, a third reading and the Senate before becoming law, but is due to come into effect no earlier than 2025.

Champagne compared that approach to the European Union, which is advancing toward a legal framework for AI that "proposes a clear, easy to understand approach, based on four different levels of risk: unacceptable risk, high risk, limited risk, and minimal risk."

The EU legislation will address subliminal, manipulative and deceptive AI techniques and how the technology could exploit vulnerabilities along with biometric systems and using AI to infer emotions in law enforcement and office settings.

But, Champagne warned, "In the EU, it's going to take probably until 2026 before there's anything."

Asked about Canada's approach to AI and other digital legislation, Abdullah Snobar indicated there is room for improvement.

"Are we doing OK? Maybe, but we're definitely not moving as fast as we could be," said the executive director of the DMZ, a Toronto tech hub that supports startups.

While he said Canada is still in a great position because of the talent and economic opportunity it has driven in the sector, he still sees the Europeans as leading the way.

"We've got to learn from what the Europeans are doing to some extent and then bring our own flavour to it as well," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 28, 2023.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

U$ 

Federal Court Halts Illegal Logging to Save Endangered Grizzlies

BY MIKE GARRITY

 JUNE 29, 2023
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Image by Thomas Lefebvre.

Thanks to a successful court challenge by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, over 10,000 acres of grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana will not be decimated by commercial logging. In late June, our lawsuit in a federal district court in Montana halted a large-scale logging project in endangered grizzly bear habitat to protect the small, isolated, and imperiled Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population from further harm.

The Ripley logging project authorized almost 17 square miles of commercial logging (10,854 acres) on publicly-owned National Forest lands, including roughly five square miles of clearcuts (3,223 acres). By the U.S. Forest Service’s own estimate, the project would cost federal taxpayers $643,000 to implement since receipts from the commercial timber sales do not cover the cost of the post-logging ecological remediation.

The Court ruled the project is illegal because the government did not analyze the cumulative impacts on grizzly bears from concurrent logging and road-building on public lands, state lands, and private lands in the area. The project authorized construction of 30 miles of new logging roads and reconstruction of 93 miles of logging roads and it is well-documented that roads pose the greatest threat to grizzly bears, followed by logging and habitat removal.

The court victory is especially significant because the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is in very bad shape. The actual count of grizzlies published in 2021 for the 2020 monitoring year found 45 bears, down from 50 bears in 2019, and 54 bears in 2018. The government’s own Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan requires 100 bears for the minimum viable population.

The Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is also failing every recovery target and goal: it is failing the target for females with cubs; the target for distribution of females with cubs; the female mortality limit and the mortality limit for all bears – (which is 0 mortalities until a minimum of 100 bears is reached).

A peer-reviewed scientific research paper, Kendall et al. (2016), analyzed the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population in detail based on extensive and systematic DNA collection in the region and found: “In the small Cabinet and Yaak populations, the difference between growth and decline is 1 or 2 adult females being killed annually or not.” Last year three female Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears died.

The study concluded “the small size, isolation, and inbreeding documented by this study demonstrate the need for comprehensive management designed to support [Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem] population growth and increased connectivity and gene flow with other populations.”

The Court acknowledged that this population is “uniquely vulnerable,” and it found the government’s analysis “factually false” because the government “assumed, contrary to the evidence before them, that the non-federal lands do not provide habitat for grizzly bears. They then used that false assumption to conclude that because the Project would not substantially reduce secure habitat on USFS land, the Project would not jeopardize the grizzly bear.”

The Court ruled the Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to “adequately consider the cumulative effects” of how private and state roads in the area affected the bears’ ability to move to secure habitat, and chastised the agency’s obfuscation of the facts, writing: “The Court and the public should not have to embark on a scavenger hunt through a nearly thirty-thousand page administrative record to find information that the BiOp [Biological Opinion} itself was supposed to disclose.”

This win is a great victory for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies – and we will continue our fight to ensure this dwindling population of grizzly bears will not be extirpated by the Forest Service’s reckless corporate welfare giveaways of our public National Forests to private logging companies.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Philippines graft court dismisses ill-gotten wealth case against Marcos Sr., Imelda, others

By Coconuts Manila

Jun 29, 2023 

The Sandiganbayan’s Second Division has dismissed the ill-gotten wealth case against the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., his wife Imelda, and their alleged associates. The court cited a lack of evidence as the reason for the dismissal.

In a 45-page decision, the anti-graft court concluded that the prosecution failed to present enough evidence to establish that the assets and properties in question were acquired through illicit means.

The court stated, “After carefully reviewing the evidence on record, it is evident that the plaintiff did not provide enough proof to support their claims. Specifically, they failed to demonstrate that the properties in question were obtained through illegitimate methods.”

The case, known as Civil Case No. 0014, was filed in 1987 and aimed to forfeit and recover certain assets and properties allegedly owned by associates of the Marcoses. The accused individuals included Modesto Enriquez, Trinidad Diaz-Enriquez, Rebecco Panlilio, Erlinda Enriquez-Panlilio, Leandro Enriquez, Don Ferry, Roman Cruz Jr., and Gregorio Castillo. The companies involved were Ternate Development Corp., Monte Sol Development Corporation, Olas del Mar Development Corporation, Fantasia Filipina Resort, Inc., Sulo Dobbs, Inc., Philippine Village, Inc., Silahis International Hotel, Inc., Hotel Properties, Inc., Puerto Azul Beach and Country Club, and Philroad Construction Corporation.

The prosecution claimed that the accused, in collusion, unlawfully acquired and accumulated wealth at the expense of the government. However, the court found no evidence linking the Marcoses to the control or interest in the mentioned corporations.

The court also disregarded the testimony of the Presidential Commission on Good Government’s records custodian, the prosecution’s sole witness. The court noted that she lacked personal knowledge regarding the accuracy of the presented documents. Additionally, the court observed that most of the documents were illegible photocopies from the custody of the PCGG.

The decision was signed by Associate Justice Arthur Malabaguio and supported by Associate Justices Oscar Herrera Jr. and Edgardo Caldona.

In a separate ruling dated February 21, the Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division also dismissed a civil case related to alleged ill-gotten wealth against Marcos and others. This case pertained to reversion, reconveyance, and accounting claims against Marcos and other respondents.

However, in May, the Sandiganbayan’s Fourth Division denied a motion by members of the Marcos family to regain properties previously deemed as ill-gotten, stating the lack of merit.

A Year After Dobbs, Black Women Still Struggle

for Access to Reproductive Health Care

BY KIMALA PRICE

 JUNE 29, 2023
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It’s been a year since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and the predictions by several experts that the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would lead individual states to ban abortions have come true.

Also true has been the impact of those bans and restrictions on the reproductive health disparities between Black and white women.

As a scholar who studies reproductive policy, politics and social justice movements, I have always been aware that, even when Roe was in place, abortion access is an elusive right for women of color, women in rural areas and women living in poverty.

Black women comprise a disproportionate percentage – 39% – of abortion patients in the United States, and many live in communities with limited access to health services, including family planning clinics and pharmacies. They also disproportionately experience higher rates of other reproductive health conditions, such as infant mortality and pregnancy-related complications and deaths.

The lack of clinics means that Black women often delay or forgo necessary health care services.

Before the reversal of Roe, many Black women, who are likely to live in states with abortion restrictions, had to worry not only about the cost of the procedure but also about travel costs and the possible loss of wages.

Given the continued actions of anti-abortion policymakers at the state level, it’s my belief that the U.S. will continue to see more restrictions – not fewer – and thus make it harder for Black women to have access to reproductive health care.

Restricted abortion access

A small number of states, such as California, New York and Washington, have passed laws or constitutional amendments that guarantee or strengthen abortion access.

Some of those states have seen an increase in demand for abortion at clinics. In fact, the demand has quadrupled for some clinics in California.

But at least 17 states, mostly concentrated in the Southeast and the Midwest, have fully or partially banned abortions.

An additional 10 states have further restricted abortion access without banning abortion outright. Moreover, some state legislatures have begun to pass legislation that makes it illegal to travel across borders to obtain abortions.

That means that pregnant women – and those who assist them – can potentially face criminal charges for obtaining abortions in another state.

Two states with the largest populations in total numbers of African Americans – Texas and Florida – have abortion bans.

The states with the largest percentages of African Americans – 37% in Mississippi, 31% in both Georgia and Louisiana, and 26% in Alabama – have the most restrictive abortion laws.

In fact, abortion is completely banned with few exceptions in Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

These bans have a detrimental impact on access for Black women. They now have to travel – even more so than before – to obtain an abortion, assuming they have the financial means to do so.

Reproductive health disparities beyond abortion

The recent tragic death of U.S. Olympic champion Tori Bowie during childbirth is a stark reminder of the reproductive health disparities that continue to plague the Black community.

Black women, regardless of income or educational level, are three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women. Black women have higher levels of obesity, hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease that can contribute to these complications.

They are also more likely to receive little or late prenatal care, or none at all.

But this only partially explains this disparity.

Researchers have shown that the implicit bias and stereotypical assumptions of health care providers are also key factors.

Pregnant Black women are often refused hospital admission for delivery if they lack health insurance. Sometimes they are denied on the mere assumption that they do not have insurance.

In various studies, Black women have reported that they have been treated disrespectfully by medical personnel dismissive of their fears and concerns about their reproductive health. Black women’s complaints about pain are often ignored, which can lead to misdiagnosis or delayed treatment.

In addition, Black women are more likely to be coerced into submitting to unnecessary cesarean sections, which can lead to major medical complications.

Black women report that they must be particularly assertive with health care providers to ensure that their reproductive needs are addressed.

Where do we go from here?

According to the Pew Research Center, 57% of Americans disapprove the reversal of Roe, and 62% say that abortion should be legal.

The Dobbs ruling is not only out of step with the general public, it also does not jibe with the opinions of most African Americans, of which a significant majority – 68% – agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

It remains to be seen if these sentiments will have an effect on the upcoming elections.

In the meantime, abortion access remains only one part of Black women’s reproductive health challenges.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Kimala Price is Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University.

 OPINION

The Need for More Funding, Especially to Women, Towards Climate Adaptation Goals

By Silvia Baur-Yazbeck

A young girl holds a child as she makes her way to a mobile health clinic after their village was devasted by the floods in Pakistan. Credit: UNICEF/Shehzad Noorani

WASHINGTON DC, Jun 29 2023 (IPS) - There is a significant funding gap for climate adaptation – especially for women. Public financing will not be sufficient to close this gap, but it will be crucial for supporting the most vulnerable and facilitating private sector investments where funding and support is needed most.

Inclusive financial systems play an important role in channeling finance to the most vulnerable, including payment systems and last mile agent networks that enable access to social safety net payments, climate risk insurance products, savings for emergencies or affordable credit for investments in climate-resilient assets and more resilient livelihoods.

Development funders are thirsty for guidance and good practices to identify where they can be catalytic and crowd in the private sector for greater investment in climate adaptation.

Funding to support inclusive financial systems may be an entry point for funders with significant potential for climate adaptation impact and a clear role for private sector investment.

Where and how funders allocate funding is determined by their organizational strategies and priorities. Over the past two to three years, development funders and many impact investors have adopted strategies focused on addressing climate change and its impacts.

Women build barriers in Nepal to prevent the river from overflowing and flooding nearby villages. Credit: UNDP/Azza Aishath

More recently, especially after COP26, funders are seeking ways to allocate more funding toward climate adaptation goals. To better understand what funders are doing and whether financial inclusion is leveraged to achieve and accelerate progress toward those goals, CGAP conducted desk research and interviews over the last year (2022-2023).

Given the importance of gender equity goals and growing evidence that climate change and public and private sector responses to it are impacting women disproportionally, the research also examined how gender outcomes are embedded into climate strategies and projects.

This work covered a range of public and private development funders supporting financial inclusion and/or climate goals. For climate funding at large, the past decade has seen an exponential increase in climate finance from both public and private sources. Yet far too little of this funding has been dedicated to supporting climate adaptation and resilience.

Of the estimated USD 632 billion in climate finance that was committed in 2020, only about 7% was linked to adaptation benefits. And only around USD 83 billion was provided for climate action in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), meaning that those with the greatest need and fewest resources to adapt are excluded from global climate finance flows.

Public funders have made commitments to fill the financing gap and mobilize private finance by testing and de-risking investments in new business models, technologies, and climate-vulnerable sectors.

However, our research showed that many of these funders are still developing strategies and in the early stages of implementing projects and investments that support climate adaptation at scale.

We learned that an important barrier funders face in to putting to work their climate adaptation funding commitments is limited knowledge about impact pathways and effective leverage points for advancing climate adaptation and resilience for the most vulnerable.

There are four reasons why funders should consider inclusive finance as an opportunity for supporting climate adaptation:

We believe that inclusive finance can be an entry point for funders to fulfill their climate ambitions and support climate adaptation for the most vulnerable.

Below are four reasons why funders should consider inclusive finance as an opportunity for increasing public and private investments in climate adaptation.

Inclusive finance can enable the autonomous adaptation of households

Most climate adaptation projects and investments support planned adaptation strategies at the national level, such as climate-resilient infrastructure and technologies. While important, these programs fall short in supporting households that are already feeling the impact of climate change in reduced crop yields, damaged assets, reduced access to basic services and health-related issues.

These households need affordable credit and savings products to access new technologies and skills that enable them to grow more resilient to climate change. In addition, they need risk transfer solutions that protect their investments in case of damage or loss.

Inclusive finance can support women’s climate adaptation and resilience

Low-income women are significantly more vulnerable to climate change impacts and therefore in great need to access solutions that help them adapt and build resilience. Research shows that women who can access and use financial services are more likely to be resilient to shocks and stresses, access basic services and run successful businesses.

Funders are already including a gender lens in their climate strategies but seem to lack clarity around how they can address both goals simultaneously. Investments in women’s financial inclusion alongside programs for transfer of skills and technologies offer an opportunity for funders to achieve both objectives by empowering women to choose and lead their own adaptation strategies.

There is also good experience in the financial inclusion sector about the role of social norms and how to address them, which will be important to consider when designing financial and non-financial solutions for climate adaptation.

Inclusive finance can crowd in private sector finance

In 2021, private investors were the primary drivers of financial inclusion funding growth. There is huge interest among private investors in the financial sector and experience among public funders in crowding in more private capital. This opens an opportunity to facilitate existing financial sector investments toward climate adaptation projects.

However, this will require public funders to shift their focus (and that of their private peers) away from mitigation-linked projects, to instead demonstrate where there are viable business models and reduce the risk for private investments. Public funders can also help by sharing their data, risk modeling approaches, and learnings that demonstrate the financial and social benefits of investing in climate adaptation.

A focus on inclusive finance can enable an inclusive and just transition

There is a risk that the increased focus on greening the financial sector by introducing exclusion lists and requiring green credentials will exclude the most vulnerable from accessing affordable finance.

Poor households are in the greatest need to adopt more climate-friendly and resilient practices to maintain and improve their livelihoods. Imposing reporting or certification requirements or excluding them because they are risky clients will prevent them from accessing financial services and limit their ability to adapt and participate in the transition to a more climate-friendly economy.

To enable a just transition, there needs to be more awareness and caution to avoid potential financial and economic exclusion of the most vulnerable.

For funders to seize these opportunities and link financial inclusion, climate, and gender goals in their funding practices, they must adopt new processes and shift their internal incentives to take on more risk and work across sectors

Our interviews confirmed that funders are working hard to build their internal capacity and develop targets and metrics to track climate adaptation. However, they were also cognizant that these efforts do not translate into increased projects and funding for climate adaptation unless there are incentives, more concessional and risk-tolerant financial instruments, and an increased exchange of knowledge and good practices.

Many funders said that funding mitigation is much easier – there are many sample projects, lessons learned and clear metrics to measure their success against. Funding adaptation is less attractive for funders because it requires them to develop new results chains and metrics, take on risky endeavors that haven’t been tested and invest more in data collection and impact measurement as results are less visible and take time to realize.

An encouraging first step, though, is an increased focus on climate adaptation targets which will set milestones and can create incentives to invest more in adaptation projects. Some funders are also integrating climate focal points or creating working groups, including specifically for climate adaptation.

Over the next three years, CGAP will work with investors and financial service providers to identify and test successful approaches to providing financial services that support climate adaptation and resilience.

The objective is to share examples, lessons learned and practical guidance for financial services providers, funders and other important sector actors to provide the poor and vulnerable access to financial and non-financial services that support their climate adaptation and resilience.

We will convene funders for peer exchange and to jointly develop recommendations as to where public versus private funders may play a more critical role and what financing instruments are most effective in supporting climate adaptation.

To achieve our objectives for this work, we rely on our members and partners to engage and share their experiences. We hope you will join us in this effort. Please reach out or leave a comment below with reactions and suggestions.

Silvia Baur-Yazbeck is Financial Sector Specialist, CGAP

Source: Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) is a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations that works to advance the lives of poor people, especially women, through financial inclusion.