From the Frontlines to Frameworks: EstablishingNational Mechanisms tor Loss and Damage

Executive Summary

This document synthesizes key insights from a panel discussion on addressing climate-related loss and damage (L&D). The central thesis is that while international finance is a focal point of negotiations, it will be critically insufficient, necessitating a robust focus on domestic resource mobilization, innovative technological applications, and significant improvements in national-level institutional coordination.

Key takeaways from the discussion include:

Insufficiency of International Finance: There is a consensus that international public climate finance will never be adequate to cover the scale of L&D needs. The current pledges to the L&D Fund, estimated at around $800 million with only a fraction actually received, starkly contrast with the billions required.
Pivoting to Domestic Resources: The primary solution lies in mobilizing domestic resources, both public and private. This involves creatively mainstreaming L&D considerations into existing large-scale public programs (e.g., social protection, water harvesting, agriculture) rather than solely relying on new, bespoke funds.
Data as the Foundation: The ability to quantify losses—past, present, and future—is fundamental to justifying and allocating resources. Significant data gaps persist, particularly for non-economic losses, slow-onset events, and socio-economic variables like vulnerability and coping capacity.
Emergence of Innovative Solutions: Technology, particularly AI, presents transformative potential. An experimental platform in India demonstrates how AI can assess damage via a photograph, identify the financial impact, and automatically channel funds from existing government schemes to affected individuals, bypassing cumbersome L&D-specific mechanisms.
Critical Institutional Fragmentation: A major barrier to effective action is severe fragmentation at the national level. The existence of separate focal points for the L&D Fund, the Santiago Network, and general L&D issues often creates internal conflict, duplicates effort, and hinders a coherent national strategy.
The Santiago Network’s Role: The Santiago Network for Loss and Damage (SNLD) is emerging as a crucial, demand-driven “marketplace” for technical assistance. Notably, it is accessible to non-governmental actors and is seeing high demand for support in data collection and analysis, which can then unlock access to financing.

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I. The Landscape of Loss and Damage Financing

The discussion established that financing L&D requires a multi-pronged strategy that looks beyond the limited pool of international public funds and innovates at the domestic level.

The Inadequacy of International Public Finance

A core argument presented is that relying solely on international commitments is an untenable strategy. As one expert stated, “no amount of international public climate finance will ever be enough to ameliorate the LMD that we need to ameliorate.” While holding the international community to account for its pledges is necessary, countries are urged not to “hold our breath” and to proactively develop complementary domestic solutions. The gap between pledges and disbursed funds for the new L&D Fund was highlighted as a pressing concern, with an estimated $800 million pledged but only about $300 million received.

Domestic Public Financing: Mainstreaming Over Bespoke Funds

The most viable path for public financing at the national level is not the creation of new, dedicated L&D funds—of which there are no real examples currently—but rather the creative and systematic integration of L&D into existing public finance streams.

Leveraging Existing Programs: Every country possesses large-scale programs such as social protection, livestock support, and water harvesting initiatives. These can be leveraged to address L&D. The speaker advocated for “the mainstream of L&D across the large scale public infrastructure which is the only route… to meeting the finance at the domestic level.”
An Innovative Technology Model: A powerful example of this approach is an AI-driven platform developed by the organization SEEDS in India.
- Process: A farmer who suffers damage (e.g., a hole in their roof from a storm) takes a photo and uploads it to the platform.
- AI Function: The AI uses the photo and geolocation to assess the financial impact of the damage.
- Automated Funding: The platform then automatically identifies and funnels money from pre-existing, relevant government schemes (e.g., housing, crop loss compensation, livestock) directly into the farmer’s bank account.
- Significance: This model demonstrates how technology can link local vulnerability assessment directly to existing financial mechanisms, providing tangible and rapid benefits without creating a new L&D-specific bureaucracy.

Domestic Private Financing: Opportunities and Limitations

While private finance offers potential, its limitations, especially in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, must be acknowledged. Several emerging mechanisms were identified:

Mechanism	Description	Examples
Risk Transfer	Traditional insurance and related products to cover potential losses.	–
Blended Finance	Combining funds from philanthropies and the private sector to create support packages for L&D financing.	The Landscape Resilience Fund
Levies and Taxes	Imposing taxes on specific sectors, with revenues directed towards L&D funds.	Fossil fuel taxes; proposals for international air travel levies. France implemented a €5 levy per ticket on domestic flights.
Equity Investments	Private sector investments in technologies and practices that build resilience.	The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, which supports technologies for smallholder farmers.

II. The Critical Role of Data in Addressing Loss and Damage

A recurring theme was the absolute necessity of robust data to make L&D tangible and actionable. Without it, securing and directing finance is exceptionally difficult. As one expert asserted, “If we don’t quantify and understand and present our losses, we cannot really turn them into monetary values.”

Key Data Dimensions and Gaps

The panel outlined a comprehensive spectrum of data required for a full picture of L&D, while also identifying significant gaps.

Temporal Spectrum: Understanding requires a three-part view:
1. Historical Losses: What a country has already lost.
2. Ongoing Losses: What a country is currently losing.
3. Future Losses: What a country may lose in the future.
Economic vs. Non-Economic Losses: A critical gap exists in quantifying non-economic losses. This goes beyond culture or language to include the personal “values we attach to anything we lose.” For example, the economic value of a lost house is its replacement cost, but the non-economic loss is the personal value attached to that specific home. A value-based approach, rather than a purely monetary one, is needed.
Event Type: Data collection is stronger for rapid-onset events (cyclones, floods) than for slow-onset events like land degradation, salinization, and sea-level rise, whose “creeping” damages take years to manifest.
Socio-economic Variables: Data efforts often focus on the tangible impacts of events but neglect crucial context, such as data on vulnerability, exposure, and the coping capacity of affected populations.

Existing Data Sources and Efforts

While gaps exist, a foundation of data is available from various sources:

Global Level: The IPCC and global risk modeling alliances provide publicly accessible global data.
International Databases: The EM-DAT database offers country-level aggregate data.
Subnational Databases: The UN Office for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR) has supported 113 countries in developing detailed databases that go three administrative tiers below the national level. These are government-owned and collected, with Ethiopia having recorded 15,000 events and Indonesia over 200,000.
Civil Society Efforts: Organizations like SEEDS and the Global Network of Disaster Reduction (GNDR) are pioneering data collection through citizen science and crowdsourcing.

The Debate on Climate Change Attribution

A significant point of discussion was whether financing should be conditional on scientifically attributing a specific event to climate change. One view strongly cautioned against this, arguing it places an impossible burden on communities. An expert relayed a sentiment from a community member from Kenya: “You’re doing such a disservice to us because I will not be able to do it… you’re talking my way to [poverty].” The counterpoint emphasized that attribution science is highly rigorous and its results are defensible, though it was agreed that it should not be a precondition for financing.

III. Institutional Frameworks and Coordination Challenges

Effective action on L&D is being undermined by a lack of coordination and institutional fragmentation at the national level. A coherent, integrated approach is urgently needed.

The Santiago Network for Loss and Damage (SNLD)

The SNLD is designed to address technical capacity gaps and is proving to be a critical entry point for many countries.

Function: It operates as a demand-driven “marketplace.” A country or organization requests technical assistance, and members of the network can respond and receive funding to provide that assistance.
Accessibility: Crucially, any entity—including civil society and community-based organizations—can request assistance. Accreditation is not required.
High Demand for Data Support: The network is a “good launching pad for countries and communities to understand their losses.” Of 34 African countries in a recent workshop, 23 submitted draft proposals requesting assistance with data. Yemen has submitted a formal request for help in establishing a loss tracking system.

National-Level Fragmentation and Silos

A severe challenge identified is the proliferation of uncoordinated roles within national governments, leading to inefficiency and internal conflict.

Multiple Focal Points: For L&D alone, countries are being asked to nominate:
1. L&D Contact Points
2. Santiago Network Liaisons
3. National Focal Points for the L&D Fund
Conflict of Interest: This structure creates perverse incentives. As one panelist noted, “nobody is willing to do data collection work so as someone else can get the money.”
Ministerial Disconnect: There is often a disconnect between the Ministry of Disaster Management, which holds beneficiary lists and data from social protection schemes, and the Ministry of Environment, which leads on climate policy. This “gap between those two ministries” prevents the use of existing infrastructure to address L&D.
A “Whole of Government” Approach: A minister in the audience powerfully advocated for a “whole of government approach,” arguing that climate change is not a single ministry’s issue. The impacts on fisheries, livestock, and public health require integrated action. Cyclone shelters, for instance, are less effective if they do not accommodate livestock, as women often refuse to evacuate without their animals.

IV. Current State of International Negotiations

Negotiations are grappling with operationalizing the various L&D mechanisms and, most critically, securing the necessary finance to make them effective.

Core Negotiation Pillars

Four key issues dominate the L&D negotiation track:

Enhancing Institutional Coordination: A primary goal is to ensure the WIM Executive Committee (ExCom), the Santiago Network, and the L&D Fund “work together to ensure that they maximize the resources that are available” and avoid duplication.
Integrating L&D into NDCs: There is a push to integrate L&D into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but there is currently no common understanding or agreement on how to advise parties on this.
Outreach and Knowledge: There is broad support for ensuring L&D is understood at all levels through knowledge sharing, seminars, and other outreach events.
Finance: This remains the “biggest of the hurdles.” Developing countries are pushing for language that ensures the scaling up of additional, predictable, and accessible financial resources, moving pledges into firm commitments.

The Negotiator’s Burden

The pressure on negotiators from developing countries is immense. They face the challenge of translating complex discussions into tangible outcomes for communities facing existential threats. As one negotiator expressed, “when you go back you need to go back with concrete answers to questions that made you to attend this meeting.” The support of civil society and the “voice outside that room” is considered crucial for giving negotiators the leverage to push for meaningful results.