Ahead of the Financing for Development conference in Addis, Paul Steele asks whether changes are needed to the way we address climate and development finance.

Is spending to make agriculture in Bangladesh climate resilient best labelled as climate finance or development finance – or is it impossible to separate the two?

Is it fair to label public money from Europe to build wind turbines in China part of official development assistance?

A new discussion paper from IIED recommends a way forward on these issues – and we want to see if you agree with our proposals. I suggest that it is useful to distinguish between different types of international climate finance (adaptation and mitigation) and different types of recipient (Least Developed Countries (LDCs) versus middle-income countries) – as illustrated by the climate finance compass below (Image: IIED/Adam Cohen).

In LDCs, there are strong links between adaptation finance and development finance, so I suggest this should be counted as official development assistance (ODA).

But in middle-income countries, the links between mitigation finance and development finance are weak. I suggest that this should be additional to ODA. Instead, it could be counted using the new metric of total official support for sustainable development (TOSD).

These are important issues for both the Financing for Development Conference in Ethiopia in July 2015 and the Paris negotiations in December 2015.

Have we got this right? Please share your comments below and help shape IIED's advocacy for the forthcoming critical events.

In the negotiations for the Financing for Development conference, the links between the climate and development issues have been recognised. The second version of the negotiating text (PDF) states: "We acknowledge the importance of taking into account the three dimensions of sustainable development and building climate and disaster resilience considerations into development financing to ensure the sustainability of development results. We recognise that well-designed development actions can capture multiple local and global benefits, including those related to climate change. We recognise the need for transparent accounting for climate finance and welcome the ongoing work in the UNFCCC."

For more Information, please check iied website: HERE