How much climate finance goes to health?

Health specialists at the Climate Centre are analysing flows of adaptation finance and looking at how much of this funding is used for local health programming. Preliminary results from our research on national commitments and funding streams provides an insight into the landscape of climate action.

By Devin O'Donnell and Tilly Alcayna, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

We already know from a recent report by the World Health Organization that the health sector is significantly underfunded: less than 0.5 per cent of multilateral climate finance targets health.

But how many health projects have been funded by both multilateral and bilateral financing streams in the past decade, and where has most of this money been going?

It’s important to understand how health features in national planning. WHO has analysed National Adaptation Plans submitted and found that health is a priority in the majority of the plan, but there is little follow-up implementation and funding allocated.

National Adaptation Plan (NAP) priorities include vector- and water-borne diseases, health impacts from extreme events, and ways to increase the resilience of health-care facilities. Zoonoses, mental health, and sexual and reproductive health were mentioned least. But very few of these priority areas received international funding.

Inconsistent

We looked at both bilateral and multilateral funding streams and analysed the percentage of adaptation projects that were applied for directly by the health sector between 2009 and 2019. 

Less than half of one per cent of approved projects were from coming from applicants in the health sector, or just under two per cent of total funding in a decade of climate adaptation finance.

Multilateral funds provide less than half as much funding to health projects compared to a cross-sector average.

Most funded adaptation projects for health focused on agriculture, water and sanitation, and infectious diseases; few were aligned with NAP priorities. Additionally, 72 per cent of funding has been extremely recent, between 2016 and 2019, and inconsistent year-on-year.

Providing consistent, reliable, increased funding to health projects will be imperative for the sustainability of health ecosystems.

Direct costs

Most of the climate finance investments went toward projects in Sub-Saharan Africa; other areas with a significant number of projects include East Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Middle East and North Africa has largely been left out of health funding, with only two projects and two per cent of funding.

Our concerns

All this is worrying since predictions for health impacts of climate change include increased mortality from heat, malnutrition, and vector and water-borne diseases.

The direct and indirect impacts on health systems of storms, heatwaves, flooding and drought have widespread short and long-term health consequences and will further strain limited resources. WHO predicts the direct costs of health impacts could reach US$ 4 billion a year by 2030.

But on a more positive note, many of the potential benefits of adaptation programming come in the form of health savings, as long as health actually is factored into projects at the outset.

Our findings underscore the urgent need for an emphasis on health in adaptation programmes at a time when donors might be ready to listen.

The Climate Centre has published a factsheet on health in climate finance to assist National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and partners in understanding and advocating for increased climate adaptation funding for the health sector.

IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre would be eager to engage with the ENBEL partners to develop a dedicated policy brief on this topic, to be released in the lead- up to COP27. Interested? Let’s engage!