The Knowledge Hub

This report assesses opportunities to increase private sector participation and financing for climate adaptation and nature-based infrastructure in Emerging and Developing Economies (EMDEs). Climate change is intensifying hydrological variability, coastal storms, and heatwaves, and these effects are anticipated to intensify as global temperatures continue to rise in the coming decades.

Small Island Developing States are among the least responsible for climate change – yet, they stand to suffer the most in terms of negative impacts. Despite contributing less than one percent of greenhouse gas emissions, small island developing states are highly vulnerable to tropical cyclones, hurricanes, storm surges, and droughts. From 1970 to 2020, these states lost US$153 billion due to weather, climate, and water-related hazards.

This report explores nature-based solutions (NBS) for beach stabilization within the Blue Economy framework, emphasizing sustainable ocean resource use for economic growth and ecosystem health. Coastal tourism, vital to developing regions and SIDS, benefits from these strategies. Targeting governments and tourism stakeholders, the report offers practical approaches to combat beach erosion, stressing that direct interventions should follow evaluation of non-intervention options. It educates the tourism sector on how NBS can enhance climate resilience and tourism outcomes, detailing erosion processes and methods with added social, environmental, and economic benefits for vulnerable communities with limited resources.

This report provides an overview of the potential role that nature-based solutions (NBS) can play in ports. It aims to illustrate how NBS can be effectively integrated into port planning, design, and operations to address various port challenges, while offering opportunities to leverage climate resilience benefits and other cobenefits. The report outlines the types of NBS that could be most applicable to ports, examines their alignment with global policy frameworks (such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement), and highlights both the opportunities and implementation challenges associated with their use. NBS are receiving attention globally and in various sectors, with several NBS approaches demonstrating technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

This report aims to identify strategic actions to increase investment in nature-based solutions (NBS) for climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa by evaluating over a decade of NBS project investment and assessing a range of policy, financial, institutional, social, and technical barriers to adoption. It examines historical and projected data for climate hazards in the region to provide background on the challenges the region faces. To establish a baseline of the status of NBS in the region and evaluate the types of projects being implemented, this report presents an inventory of NBS projects from across the region that were initiated between 2012 and 2023. In addition, the team conducted over 50 interviews with project developers, funders, and investors of NBS projects in sub-Saharan Africa to gain insights on the key barriers to NBS project investment and implementation. This report synthesizes results from the analysis and interviews to offer targeted recommendations for how actors such as governments and multilateral organizations can effectively scale up NBS in the region.