2. Foreign Aid for Capacity Building to Address Climate Change

Chapter 2 focuses on the effectiveness of foreign aid regarding capacity building in the least developed countries, those most vulnerable to climate change and with the most pressing need to respond and adapt. It addresses an important point: that as countries try to roll out climate aid quickly, bilateral aid—which is easier for donors and recipients to control—is likely to expand much more than multilateral aid, as historical patterns with other aid programmes suggest. The chapter concludes that in the case of foreign aid targeted to tackle climate change (including capacity building), it will be a slow and difficult process to apply the lessons that have been learned from other foreign aid experiences, especially due to the need for tailoring aid to individual countries’ settings and due to the challenges to donor countries being able to make credible, long-term aid commitments. Both of these aspects are essential to build the necessary systems to invest in climate change mitigation and adaptation in the least developed countries.