The study contains assessments of 25 multilateral organisations receiving support from Swedish ODA. To what extent are their work aligned with the Paris Agreement in terms of climate mitigation, adaptation to adverse effects of climate change and transformative change towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilient development?
The report was presented during the seminar How Can Development Cooperation Support Climate Action? that You can watch here:
Main findings
- The organisations show a high degree of alignment in general. The variation, especially among organisations whose main mandates are weakly connected to climate change issues, is at times a dearth of preparedness, lack of policy and operational structures.
- Many of them stick to outdated approaches regarding fossil fuel investments.
- More is to be expected from their contributions to transformative socio-economic change.
- Taken as a group, more is needed in terms of joint strategies and swift action.
- More attention is needed to the interrelations between health and climate to achieve batter grounded climate resilience.
- Other aspects and interlinkages underpinning effective climate adaptation need to be promoted, in particular risk assessment of various development activities as a basis for transformative action.
Recommendations
- Sweden should continue to strategically promote multilateral collaboration and joint standards for climate change mitigation, especially among the MDBs.
- Sweden should seek alliances with governments, multilateral organisations, academia and other actors that may further develop the understandings of what successful adaptation to climate change is and how this learning evolves.
- To make informed choices, Sweden might want to further develop tools such as the Central Environmental Assessments, used by Sida as a basis for organisational assessments.
- Sweden should continuously initiate and encourage normative and operational dialogues on how to integrate into multilateral organisations’ mandates, policies and practices, building on these experiences and competences.
Authors
Mats Hårsmar, Deputy Managing Director, EBA
Lisa Hjelm, Programme Manager, EBA