Africa is championing homegrown models to urgently address the UN’s loss and damage mechanism

African climate stakeholders are pushing for homegrown models and nature – based solutions to urgently respond to the escalating climate impacts across the continent, with reforms to the UN’s Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) at the centre of its long list of priorities.

At the 5th Regional Conference on loss and damage convened in Malawi, various African government officials, civil society organisations, researchers, and development partners warned that over–reliance on inherited global models would not solve our unique regional realities, but rather, African scientists and policy makers must therefore, adopt tailored climate-modeling and localised adaptation tools, if the global crisis is to be won on African soil.

“Africa continues to face disproportionate climate impacts despite contributing the least to global emissions, with communities experiencing recurring floods, droughts, and irreversible losses. Evidently, only 10% of climate finance reaches vulnerable communities due to existing bureaucracies.

Radical transparency and accountability are needed, alongside prioritised investment in strengthening local institutions,” noted Charles Mwangi from Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), calling for transparency and stronger local systems.

Accessible and predictable financing, stronger accountability systems, improved technical capacity, and better coordination are other interventions they say will ensure resources reach vulnerable communities across the continent – believed to be warming faster than the global average, according to estimates by the African Development Bank (AfDB), which noted last year that African temperatures in recent decades have been warming at a faster rate than the global mean surface temperature.

Those high temperatures have subsequently led to unprecedented food insecurity, land degradation, poverty, and the destruction of Africa’s natural ecosystems.

Convened by the Civil Society Network on Climate Change (CISONEC), the conference held early May in Lilongwe, brought together stakeholders from across the continent to review progress, identify policy and institutional gaps, and explore practical pathways for operationalising loss and damage financing mechanisms.

The UN’s loss and damage mechanism are policies and financial support designed to help vulnerable developing nations cope with the negative consequences of climate change that go beyond what communities can mitigate.

Compensation of states for loss and damage first emerged as a sticking point at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, as developing nations and their island counterparts refused to back down in their appeal for cash to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

But strong opposition from rich and heavily polluting economies caused the issue to be pushed back until one year later, when the climate talks opened again, this time at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt in 2022, when African leaders maintained that they would not relent until the loss and damage deal was on the table and a payment plan featured in the final resolutions of the talks.

“We have determined a way forward on a decades-long conversation on funding for loss and damage – deliberating over how we address the impacts on communities whose lives and livelihoods have been ruined by the very worst impacts of climate change,” said Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary at the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh at the time.

Ahead of this year’s COP 31 in November in Antalya, Türkiye, the Malawi conference made a strong call for accelerated action to ensure loss and damage finance is accessible, equitable, and responsive, reinforcing Africa’s commitment to advancing climate justice and resilience.

“The real test lies not in the commitments made, but in the actions delivered. We cannot afford delays, for our communities, climate impacts are happening now,” said Malawi’s Minister of Natural Resources, Patricia Whiskes, highlighting the urgency of translating global climate pledges into immediate, tangible action on the ground.