Guest blogger Kim Vender discusses the lessons development cooperation actors can learn from the 2024 floods in Central and Eastern Europe to better support vulnerable countries under the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF).
In September 2024, devastating floods hit Central and Eastern Europe. Much has been lost. Lives, livelihoods, landscapes, property, crops and animals. The estimated economic losses and damages amount to billions, while the non-economic losses have not even been assessed yet.
Help is on the way, mobilised by the affected countries themselves and invoked from the European Union (EU) support mechanisms: the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) and the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF). All the while, in international climate change negotiations, the discussion about loss and damage (L&D) due to climate change is in full swing. At COP27, parties finally decided to establish a Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) to support the most vulnerable countries with addressing the losses and damages they suffer where climate change mitigation and adaptation have failed. COP29 in November is supposed to achieve a decision on how to operationalise the LDF.
Considering the floods in Europe, what lessons can development actors learn to tailor their support to developing countries, especially when the LDF is up and running?
Are development actors ready for Loss and Damage?
The LDF is aimed at helping countries most vulnerable to climate change, particularly least developed countries, African countries, and small island states. Development cooperation actors like the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) or German development cooperation agency GIZ, among others, have been supporting developing countries with technical and professional capacity building for years. With the LDF about to become operational, they need to come up with very specific but at the same time comprehensive programmes to help developing countries not only avert and minimize loss and damage but also access the funds to address the losses suffered.
Development actors have so far provided funding, technical support and capacity building in areas relevant to disaster risk reduction (DRR). The UK praises itself as “one of the largest donors” to the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and contributes to several others like the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) and the Centre for Disaster Protection (CDP). The CDP is the UK’s flagship programme for technical assistance to developing countries on Disaster Risk Finance (DRF) and has implemented several training and advice sessions from 2018 to 2023, also collaboratively with GIZ. However, much of the research and internal discussions have so far focused on the issue of insurance – especially to build an evidence base for the G7-led Global Shield disaster insurance initiative. Yet, developing countries as well as NGOs have repeatedly emphasised that disaster insurance can only be one item in the loss and damage toolbox.
GIZ’s approach, on the other hand, is more comprehensive. GIZ established a “Global Programme on Risk Assessment and Management for Adaptation to Climate Change (Loss and Damage)” (GP L&D). It has elaborated a Climate Risk Management (CRM) Framework, which outlines GIZ’s approach to helping developing countries with loss and damage. Between 2016 and 2021, this included 26 trainings and seminars with over 500 decision-makers and technical staff in countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia. It is laudable that the trainings are designed with flexibility to allow for adaptation to local contexts and that they target all governmental and society levels and sectors. However, the components are mainly geared towards mainstreaming risk assessment into the participants’ work, understanding what risks they are dealing with and how to assess them. Awareness-raising is important but it hasn’t gone far enough at this point in the LDF’s implementation.
Neither the UK’s FCDO nor Germany’s GIZ gives detailed information on how they want to support countries in actually accessing the money once it is ready for disbursement and administering it to the areas most in need when disaster strikes. Moreover, other areas of consideration are not specified such as institutional capacities to devise and enforce building codes, land use planning, environmental regulations that consider adaptive planning, economic diversification to reduce vulnerability, and – highly important – cross-border cooperation and data sharing between local, national and international agencies.
Some lessons from Europe
When the floods hit European countries Poland, Austria, Czechia, and Romania, and also threatened neighbouring states, their needs varied. Poland, for instance, at first announced that it would not need human or technical resources from the UCPM because its own “emergency services are fully equipped and well prepared” but later invoked the mechanism, together with Czechia, after the extent of the damages was better understood. They received different materials as well, ranging from dehumidifiers to water treatment items. This means that governments in disaster situations need to be able, and allowed, to reassess their needs in both material and funding over the course of the event. They might also depend on data from neighbouring countries or international research centres regarding trends in natural hazards. Both requires flexibility of the support funds and appropriate emergency coordination channels between governments.
Poland’s Prime Minister also outlined that he would coordinate with other countries to make joint requests for EU funding. A multi-state application is something the LDF will also need to consider in its design and accessibility, and development cooperation actors should incorporate this option into their training. Joint applications could not only involve national governments but also multi-level applications from regions, cities, and local communities. This again necessitates good coordination mechanisms and efficient communication between state governments and in central-local relations. The latter is especially important as local governments can administer monies with a better understanding of the vulnerabilities and needs of rural and urban areas alike.
Conclusions
In the end, development actors like GIZ and FCDO have long-standing experience in supporting developing countries with project proposal writing and meeting specific funding requirements. They should consider not only integrating these activities into their L&D related training but also seeking to influence the current technical L&D dialogue so the arrangements of the LDF meet current capacities and capabilities for securing financial support in the most vulnerable nations under disaster circumstances.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of the International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Flooded houses in a village by the Danube River, Romania. (EPA Images pic). Via FMT. Creative Commons.
