Other Publications
Coherent Policies, Resilient Futures:
Financing FLW Systems in the Global South
Suparana Katyaini, Archisman Mitra, Bassel Daher, Don Mani Paul, Garima Taneja, Nitin Bassi, Alan Nicol
May 2025 | Sustainable Water
Overview
Climate finance is critical for building adaptation and sustainable development in the Global South, particularly for enhancing the climate resilience of interconnected food–land–water systems. This T20 commentary draws key lessons from India, Brazil, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, demonstrating how improved policy coherence can mobilise financing for sustainable development and enhance effective partnerships aligned with SDG 17.14.
Key Findings
- India's 'Per Drop More Crop' initiative highlights cross-systems impact with USD 2.5 billion allocated for water-efficient technologies supporting climate adaptation.
- Brazil's Sovereign Sustainable Bond Framework attracted USD 2 billion in initial funding by aligning financial instruments with environmental and social priorities.
- Successful examples like India's Group of Secretaries and Brazil's Inter-Ministerial Committee show how institutional coordination addresses siloed policy planning.
- WEF nexus analysis in Lebanon and Bangladesh highlights that land scarcity creates critical bottlenecks to food self-sufficiency, requiring investment strategies that address spatial and resource constraints.
Key Recommendations
- Leverage programme convergence - Align existing programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme with groundwater management initiatives to maximise synergistic cross-sectoral impacts and benefits for rural livelihood.
- Strengthen multi-level governance - Establish coordination mechanisms that facilitate both policy alignment and community engagement, following successful models like Rajasthan's Rural Water Sector Livelihood Improvement Programme, a collaboration between India and Japan on sustainable development.
- Adopt participatory approaches - Community workshops and multi-stakeholder consultation platforms to be encouraged for co-creating sustainability metrics that represent local priorities in investment evaluation in the socio-culturally diverse context of Global reflected in South Brazil, India ,and Lebanon.
- G20 lead transformation - Promote knowledge exchange on best practices and establish global food-land-water financing mechanisms with standardised reporting frameworks for sustainable development.
“For the Global South, climate finance is the key to unlocking true resilience, particularly within our interconnected food–land–water systems. Our work highlights how policy coherence—as seen through the experiences of India, Brazil, Lebanon, and Bangladesh—is the engine that can mobilize this critical financing, enabling sustainable development and strengthening global partnerships.”
