Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Resilience Grants to Local Governments in Least Developed Countries

The World Resources Institute (WRI) developed the Assessing Climate Change Adaptation Framework (ACCAF) to enhance the United Nations Capital Development Fund's (UNCDF) Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL). The LoCAL mechanism provides performance-based grants to local authorities in Least Developed Countries for adaptation interventions. WRI identified three primary challenges in designing the ACCAF: integrating adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) into a performance-based grant system, measuring mainstreamed adaptation, and balancing the M&E needs of individual countries against those of the wider portfolio. The paper presents solutions to these challenges and offers lessons for global donors and practitioners to improve adaptation programming.

• The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL), managed by the UNCDF, utilizes performance-based grants to fund adaptation interventions for local authorities in Least Developed Countries, using an Annual Performance Assessment to ensure governance and accountability.
• In developing the Assessing Climate Change Adaptation Framework (ACCAF) to strengthen LoCAL's impact, WRI encountered three main obstacles: integrating M&E best practices into the existing grant system, measuring adaptation that has been mainstreamed, and reconciling portfolio-wide M&E needs with country-specific requirements.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Resilience Grants to Local Governments in Least Developed Countries. https://www.wri.org/research/assessing-effectiveness-climate-resilience-grants-local-governments-least-developed

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Resilience Grants to Local Governments in Least Developed Countries. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/assessing-effectiveness-climate-resilience-grants-local-governments-least-developed.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Resilience Grants to Local Governments in Least Developed Countries |url=https://www.wri.org/research/assessing-effectiveness-climate-resilience-grants-local-governments-least-developed |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendassessing, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Resilience Grants to Local Governments in Least Developed Countries}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/assessing-effectiveness-climate-resilience-grants-local-governments-least-developed}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }