Climate finance: Earning trust through consistent reporting
Exploring the climate finance reporting landscape, with recommendations for consistent measurement over time and between providers to improve volume and effectiveness.
Who we are
Development Initiatives (DI) is a global organisation harnessing the power of data and evidence to end poverty, reduce inequality and increase resilience.
What we do
We work closely with partners at global, regional, national and local levels to ensure data-driven evidence and analysis are used effectively in policy and practice. We undertake an exciting portfolio of grant-funded work as well as providing consultancy services.
Featured work
Missing baselines: have recent increases in climate finance been exaggerated?
To what extent might increases in climate finance since 2009 be due to changes in reporting practices? We used a natural language processing model and backcast the results to find out.
Do we need a common definition of climate finance? It depends who you ask
The diversity of climate finance definitions makes it difficult to know how much donors have truly spent, undermining accountability. As parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change adopt a New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance in 2024, they must agree on what should count towards it.
Wealthy countries may be contributing less to global climate finance than we think
DI’s Euan Ritchie examines Japan's climate finance reporting, and why it shows that transparency is vital to understanding how much is really being spent
Gender equality and climate adaptation: closing the data gap
New analysis from Development Initiatives shows there are challenges tracking investment in gender-responsive climate finance, with only 0.1% of total bilateral DAC ODA going to projects specifically targeting climate adaptation and gender.
Is climate finance wrongly reported by over a billion dollars per year?
We used AI to assess how the World Bank and the UK are recording climate funds. Our model identifies one in five of the Bank's projects as appearing suspicious and warranting further investigation, compared with the UK's one in 50.
The conundrum of climate financing: Where is the money?
How can we ensure impactful climate action, mobilising greater funding for low-income and climate vulnerable economies, without compromising pathways for prosperity?
Japan and the US offset EU aid squeeze in 2023, but the outlook on aid is poor
New data shows an overall increase in aid in 2023, notably from Japan and the US, but forthcoming cuts from Germany and France may be a sign of worse to come.
New aid data highlights ongoing global challenges
New data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that aid to Ukraine and other humanitarian crises remained high in 2023, while support for countries facing long-term challenges, despite a small upturn, continued to lag.
Education in emergencies. What are we missing? Episode 4
In northeastern Nigeria, 2.8 million children need support for their education. What are we missing about access to education in emergencies, and how can the world more effectively support the children most in need?