Antalya, Türkiye: United Nations agencies have launched a joint climate risk financing initiative at the COP31 summit, aiming to mobilise more than $3 billion to protect 75 million people and their livelihoods from natural disasters and climate-related emergencies by 2030.
The platform seeks to address delays in humanitarian funding by ensuring financial resources are available before disasters strike. It will focus on making emergency funding more predictable, expanding financial support for early interventions and improving the use of available resources through partnerships with the private sector.
Lisa Doughten, Director of Financing and Outreach at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said disaster risks were becoming increasingly predictable, but the funding required to prepare for them remained fragmented and slow to reach affected communities.
Under the initiative, participating UN agencies will share expertise, pool data and develop coordinated financing solutions. The platform will combine disaster forecasting systems with financial resources to enable authorities and humanitarian organisations to respond to early warnings before floods, storms and heatwaves cause widespread damage.
The initiative has already recorded progress, with OCHA and UNICEF securing insurance policies through the support of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) specialist insurance teams. These policies will provide financial backing for programmes designed to help vulnerable communities prepare for disasters.
UNICEF’s Global Practice Director for Climate and Environment, Gernot Laganda, said reliable forecasts could provide days or even weeks of preparation time, while insurance would ensure funds remained available when multiple emergencies occurred.
However, pre-arranged financing currently accounts for less than two per cent of global humanitarian funding. WFP has helped secure nearly $211 million in such financing, highlighting the need to expand funding mechanisms to strengthen disaster preparedness worldwide.
