Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes?

The paper evaluates indicators for equity and cost-effectiveness in the allocation of international adaptation funding, using 39 project documents from the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) from 2011 as a case study. It finds that while approved projects rank high in absolute economic savings, they rank low in equity and other cost-effectiveness measures. The authors conclude that a pure economic definition of cost-effectiveness contradicts equity, but trade-offs can be minimized by using relative economic savings or human lives saved as indicators.

• The authors identify three indicators for equity—vulnerability level, poverty, and equal funding per capita—and three for cost-effectiveness: absolute economic savings, relative economic savings, and human lives saved.
• An analysis of 39 project documents considered by the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) in 2011 shows that projects approved or endorsed by the board rank high in absolute economic savings but rank low across all equity indicators and other cost-effectiveness indicators.
• While a strictly economic definition of cost-effectiveness tends to contradict equity, the trade-offs between the two can be limited if cost-effectiveness is measured by human lives saved or relative economic savings.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2013). Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes? https://www.sei.org/publications/equity-and-cost-effectiveness-of-multilateral-adaptation-finance-are-they-friends-or-foes-2/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes? 2013. https://www.sei.org/publications/equity-and-cost-effectiveness-of-multilateral-adaptation-finance-are-they-friends-or-foes-2/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes? |date=24 January 2013 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/equity-and-cost-effectiveness-of-multilateral-adaptation-finance-are-they-friends-or-foes-2/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2013equity, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2013}, month = jan, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/equity-and-cost-effectiveness-of-multilateral-adaptation-finance-are-they-friends-or-foes-2/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }