Inaugural Frld High-level Dialogue Calls For Urgent And Unified Response To Climate Threat

At the inaugural high-level dialogue of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage FRLD, held on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC, speakers stressed the need for a unified global approach to combat the effects of climate change, especially on vulnerable nations.

Convened in conjunction with the office of the United Nations Secretary General under the theme "Strengthening Responses to Loss and Damage through Complementarity, Coherence, and Coordination", the Dialogue brought together high-level representatives from governments, multilateral development banks, UN agencies, climate funds, philanthropic foundations, civil society organisations, and financial institutions to forge a common path for supporting vulnerable countries.

Established at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh and operationalised at COP28 in Dubai, the FRLD is intended to support especially vulnerable countries to contain the impact of climate-linked disasters. To date, a total of 768m in pledges has been received by the Fund, out of which an initial allocation of 250m is set to be disbursed under the Barbados Implementation Modalities BIM. Adopted at the fifth board meeting of the FRLD in April 2025, the BIM plan is expected to earmark at least 50 of the initial allocation to support Small Island Developing States SIDS and Least Developed Countries LDCs.

In their opening remarks the co-chairs of the FRLD's board, Jean-Christophe Donnellier and Richard Sherman, called for strengthened cooperation and alignment between all stakeholders. Donnellier emphasised the need for a response that is "timely, adequate, comprehensive and efficient," while Sherman urged participants to prioritise country ownership and avoid the challenges that come from complex procedures that countries face in trying to access other climate funds. "We are not a fund with country offices. You are our delivery partners," he said.

Muhammad Aurangzeb, minister of finance of Pakistan, warned, drawing on the country's experience of devastating floods in 2022, that climate change is a real and present threat. "Climate change is an existential threat and we are living it," he said, adding that an agile fund with simple access procedures would enable countries to better and quickly respond to disasters. "We are dealing with our own bureaucracies. We cannot wait years for decisions. What we need are speedy disbursements," he stressed.