Nurturing Climate Finance Leaders in Vulnerable Nations

The golden shores of The Gambia, once a sun-drenched playground for young Isatou Camara, now bear the scars of a changing world. As a child, she reveled in the vibrant coastal landscape where towering palm trees framed pristine beaches. Today, her own children’s laughter echoes across this same coast, but the beaches tell a different story.

Erosion and rising sea levels have carved away much of the sand where she once played. Camara also hears rice farmers talk of their fields being swallowed by creeping saltwater. She feels the same dread they do. “The speed at which the sea is claiming our land is alarming,” she said.

Isatou Camara at the Cape Point Beach in Bakau, The Gambia, during an evening stroll with her family. (Photo Courtesy of Isatou Camara)

Erosion isn’t all that worries her. The moan of wind outside Camara’s window now carries an ominous weight, resurrecting memories of July 2021, when a monstrous windstorm tore through The Gambia with merciless force. Homes crumbled and schools collapsed. Lives were lost, and a nation left reeling. For Camara, the storm’s aftermath etched itself into her psyche, a stark reminder of the power of climate change.

A year later, torrential rains pummeled The Gambia, triggering the worst flooding to the country in half a century, causing an estimated $80 million in damages over a mere two days — and fueling Camara’s resolve to tackle climate change.

Now, as her country’s newly appointed Director of Climate Finance, Camara has become a powerful advocate for The Gambia’s path toward resilience. She is a key leader in its bold plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, determined to safeguard her homeland’s future against the forces that threaten it.

Her promotion, she said, was in part due to the education she received as a participant in the V20 Climate Prosperity Fellowship Program, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation as part of an effort to build capacity in climate-vulnerable countries’ finance ministries.

The fellowship has also supported her work as a negotiator for the Least Developed Countries (LDC) under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Camara said. The LDC focuses on ensuring that the voices, needs, and priorities of people in its member nations are central in global climate negotiations and decisions.

Preparing for a Global Economic Shift

Climate change is projected to cause $38 trillion a year in losses worldwide by 2049, shrinking the global economy by about 20 percent and disproportionately impacting LDCs.

“The V20 Fellows are being equipped to confront this urgent challenge head-on,” said Eric Pelofsky, Vice President, of Global Economic Recovery. “Through the fellowship, they gain invaluable professional development, powerful networking opportunities, and the expertise needed to tackle urgent climate finance challenges. Then, as true changemakers, they are working within their governments to shape sustainable development for the future.”

Over two cohorts, the fellowship has supported 32 fellows from 22 countries.

Isatou Camara interviewed by the BBC during COP26 in Glasgow. (Photo Courtesy of Isatou Camara)

Fellows are mentored on a broad range of topics, from reforming the international financial system to supporting economies through carbon financing, as part of the program conducted in partnership with Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center and the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS University of London.

“The fellowship has built a strong network of finance ministry officials from climate-vulnerable economies, empowering them to lead within their ministries and on global stages,” said Rishikesh Bhandary, Assistant Director of BU’s Global Economic Governance Initiative. “With their full-time roles, the fellowship has fostered rapid peer-to-peer learning and exchange. We are confident the fellows will continue to see each other as valuable resources.”

“This fellowship has had a profound impact on my work,” Camara said, “particularly in how I approach climate finance.”

By the Numbers

$0TrillionTrillion
per year needs to be invested in climate action in developing countries by 2030
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of climate finance between 2016-2022 (or $2 billion annually) went to Small Island Developing States
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of deaths caused by climate-related disasters worldwide have occurred in Least Developed Countries

Meeting the Debt Challenge

A key issue for The Gambia, as well as many vulnerable countries, is the cost of capital.

About 50 percent of The Gambia’s 2.4 million citizens live at or below the poverty line, and 75 percent depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Fathimath Mohamad Didi, the Finance Ministry’s Debt Manager and a V20 fellow. (Photo Courtesy of Didi)

“In 2001, The Gambia had to take a loan from a multilateral development bank to pay for measures to combat coastal erosion threatening Banjul, the low-lying capital city,” Camara said. “We are still paying off that debt now, over 20 years later. Interest rates for loans are higher than our projected growth rate.”

The Maldives is grappling with a different set of debt issues.

The country, classified as upper-middle income, has achieved remarkable success over the last two decades. But high public spending, even with relatively low debt interest rates, has led to concerns about its ability to service its debt. Highly subsidized public health and electricity programs are partly to blame.

The Maldives’ debt is 120 percent of gross domestic product as of the second quarter of 2024, said Fathimath Mohamad Didi, the Finance Ministry’s Debt Manager and also a V20 fellow. Both the World Bank and the International Monetary fund have noted the Maldives is at high risk of debt distress and internal reforms are needed.

Meanwhile, the Maldives’ 521,000 citizens remain extremely vulnerable to climate change. They live in the world’s lowest-lying country, a string of coral islands with an average elevation of just 4 feet 11 inches (1.5 meters) above sea level. If global temperatures rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the Maldives risks losing nearly all its coral cover.

The Maldives relies heavily on tourism for revenue. “That part of the economy is performing well,” said Didi. “However, expenditures have risen significantly in recent years, creating a mismatch. We’ve had to borrow heavily, making it difficult to prioritize climate resilience spending.”

Didi credits the fellowship with deepening her knowledge of climate financing complexities. “When I started, it was a new area for me,” she said. “I gained valuable insights into how sustainability influences a country’s financial performance, and how to assess the impact of climate risks on a debt portfolio. It was also great to be with the other fellows, and I learned a lot from them too.”

The shoreline in the Maldives. (Photo Courtesy of Fathimath Mohamad Didi)

Rising Seas Drive Urgency

Both Camara and Didi underscored the urgency for finance leaders in vulnerable countries to not only understand climate funding strategies, but also to gain the practical tools, resources, and support needed to implement them effectively in their unique national contexts.

The Maldives is the 20th most climate-vulnerable country globally, according to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative Index, which covers 177 countries and provides a comprehensive view of a country’s climate change challenges and its capacity to address them.

Fathimath Mohamed Didi on the shore in the Maldives. (Photo Courtesy of Didi)

Most of the Maldives’ tourist infrastructure wasn’t designed for climate change. Fishing, vital to the economy, jobs, and food security, has declined from 180,000 metric tons in 2010 to 120,000 in 2020, largely due to climate change.

Nearly half the homes are located just 110 yards (100 meters) off the coastline. By 2050, 80 percent of the country could become uninhabitable at current global warming rates, studies show.

“We have to focus now on internal reforms so we can raise the funds for greater climate resilience,” said Didi. “it’s an extremely important issue if we hope to have the country intact for our kids.”

Meanwhile, Banjul, the capital city of The Gambia located at the mouth of the Gambia River, is also at risk of being submerged by 2050, Camara said.

“The international community really needs to move quickly,” she said, calling for urgent action. “We have to cut through as much red tape as we can.”