Kiribati minister calls for faster access to climate funds for vulnerable Pacific nations

A Kiribati government minister is calling for an overhaul to how vulnerable Pacific Island nations access climate funding, warning that that lengthy processes leave communities exposed.

Kiribati's Women, Youth, Sport and Social Affairs Minister Ruth Cross Kwansing is proposing a funding model that would allow small island developing states (SIDS) to carry out urgent climate adaptation projects immediately.

The proposal is intended to operate within existing multilateral climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Adaptation Fund, rather than creating an entirely new financing institution.

Cross Kwansing's proposal comes as low lying Pacific nations are facing increasingly severe coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion and threats to fresh water supplies, with the impacts compounded by the current El Niño event.

She said women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities were impacted the hardest.

The existing international climate finance systems do not respond fast enough to address these realities on the ground, she said.

"We're already on the front line," she said.

"We're already experiencing these issues, therefore, we need a far more agile way to access the climate finance funding that's available, right? Because there's plenty of money there, we just can't get our our hands into the jar."

Kiribati's own engagement with GCF's readiness process has stretched over nearly a decade. Cross Kwansing said it highlights the challenges smaller nations face in meeting the technical and administration requirements to access funding.

While the GCF has introduced a new nine-month target to speed up approvals, Cross Kwansing argued even that time frame was too long for countries already experiencing climate-related emergencies.

Her proposal would reverse the traditional funding model allowing governments to complete eligible projects immediately and seek reimbursement later.

"The reason why we've proposed this ex-post reimbursement system is to fix that. So you do the work, you provide the reports, you provide your receipt, and then you get reimbursed for it," she said.

"And then that way countries, like Kiribati [and] Tuvalu, can just scale up the work that we're doing and we're able to move at the speed and the efficiency of which the climate crisis requires."

She gave an example of the ongoing desalination projects in Kiribati where government, development partners and church organisations have worked together to fund access to safe drinking water.

However, reliance on assistance from development partners means the rollout of such projects are restricted by the resources and timelines of donors, rather than the urgency of communities needs.

Beyond financial challenges, Cross Kwansing said the delays were deepening existing inequalities, particularly for women, children, elderly and people with disabilities.

Women and caregivers are often left to manage domestic consequences of climate change. Travelling further to collect safe drinking water, caring for and moving family members when rising tides reach their doorstep.

As the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) political champion for gender equality and social inclusion, Cross Kwansing is calling for climate financing to take these urgent social vulnerabilities into account.

She warned that without meaningful change, the pressures on vulnerable people would only increase.

"It shouldn't be so hard to access those those funds," she said.

"If it's ex-post reimbursement rather than ex-ante, it will be cheaper because ex-ante means that you've got to do all the feasibility studies first, and for us that's pointless ... it is important, but not for projects that you are already struggling with water insecurity and food insecurity and all of the repercussions, all the ways that it impacts women, girl and communities."

The minister believes her proposal will give government greater flexibility to direct resources towards communities that need it most, and ensures smaller nations are not excluded.

Cross Kwansing said the concept received support at a Pacific women leaders meeting earlier this year and she was now looking towards the United Nations climate summit COP31 in Türkiye as the next opportunity to advance this proposal.

She added that even a small reference to the proposal in COP31's outcomes could trigger significant change.

"If it comes out as text at COP 31, then it's a go. It'll happen, it starts the machinery working.

"We want it to be a concrete outcome for the Pacific from COP31 because to us, this is the game-changer that speaks to all the other problems that everyone's talking about because all those problems relate to finance."

With Pacific communities already dealing with the impacts of the climate crisis, she added that the never-ending discussions on climate finance needed to bear fruit.

"Everyone comes back into these meetings and convening saying the same thing: too slow, it's not working.

"We're not able to access climate finance. Needs to be more agile, more flexible, more this. But then it's like, how? How are you going to do that?"