Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in 2023, at an estimated $1.37 trillion, showed a marginal increase (+3%) over 2022, defying expectations as recession fears early in the year receded and financial markets performed well. However, economic uncertainty and higher interest rates did affect global investment.

Health financing is a core pillar of health systems and encompasses the three functions of how revenues for health are collected, pooled and paid out to providers of health care services.

This report was written to catalyse change across the climate adaptation, disaster risk management, and humanitarian sectors to focus on the most vulnerable and excluded, who are least responsible, but most affected by the climate crisis.

As countries transition to low-carbon and climate-resilient economies, finance flows will need to shift to support these transitions, in line with the third long-term goal of the Paris Agreement, Article 2.1c.

The report addresses the challenges of delivering adaptation financing for developing countries, both from the supply and demand side. While the existing narrative around improving adaptation finance in developing countries focuses on supply side issues, this paper argues that addressing demand side challenges is equally necessary.

An analysis of climate finance flows in Ghana shows that an annual average of USD 830 million was tracked in 2019 and 2020. This is a meagre 5-9% of its required investment — estimated between USD 9.3-15.5 billion — highlighting the pressing need to bolster climate finance to achieve Ghana’s NDCs (UNFCCC, 2021).

Developing countries spent a record $443.5 billion to service their external public and publicly guaranteed debt in 2022. These costs shifted scarce resources away from health, education, environment and other critical areas, the World Bank’s latest International Debt Report showed.

The amount of climate finance flowing to agrifood systems is strikingly low and continues to diminish vis-à-vis global climate finance flows. Agriculture is one of the sectors with the highest adaptation finance needs for implementing the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) but climate finance for adaptation is also on a downward trend.

Nearly $7 trillion of public and private finance each year supports activities that directly harm nature – some 30 times the amount spent on nature-based solutions annually, according to this report published by the UNEP.