Farmers Feed the Nation & Pay with Their Lives: Bridging the Gap in Climate Adaptation Financing

A global food crisis is on our doorsteps, and the horizon is bleak. Data warns that climate change will wipe out 30% of global food production by 2050. In Bangladesh, one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world, 17% of its territory is projected to be lost to sea level rise by 2050. But the numbers don’t tell you what we at BRAC–a 53 year-old, Global South-led NGO–see every day: that those disproportionately impacted, the poorest communities, are the ones demonstrating the most resilience.

Women are already in the habit of saving a handful of rice each time they cook—their insurance against the next crisis. Farmers in Uganda are testing new crops, trying to find what can survive as salt seeps into their fields and extreme heat withers their plants. Our greatest strength in facing this crisis lies with those most exposed to it, the smallholder farmers, who produce one-third of the world’s food. Yet despite their critical role in food security, these farmers bear the brunt of climate change’s impacts and remain largely absent from the global climate discourse and global funding.

This session will spotlight these voices, and share BRAC’s effort to give farmers a fighting chance while protecting vital food supplies for the broader community. We’ll showcase a case study on one of BRAC’s climate adaptation innovations—a crop insurance program launched in 2021 that has provided coverage to nearly 150,000 small farmers. The program links insurance with agronomic support, ensuring that farmers not only recover from climate shocks but are better prepared to withstand them in the future.

We will also examine BRAC’s Big Bet pledge to lift 20 million women smallholder farmers out of climate vulnerability by 2030. As part of this commitment, BRAC is collaborating across sectors and scales—with governments, academia, communities, and the private sector—to expand a four-pillar program throughout Bangladesh, Liberia, Tanzania, and Uganda, which includes:
1. Providing smallholder farmers with actionable climate information and data to make more resilient decisions.
2. Ensuring access to financial services, training, inputs, and innovative tools so farmers have the resources to adapt.
3. Strengthening the enabling environment by working with governments to shape supportive policies, National Adaptation Plans, and budgets.
4. Building the capacity of local civil society organizations (CSOs) to secure adaptation financing and support farmers in achieving lasting resilience.

Finally, we will open the floor for a discussion on the critical shortage of global funding for climate adaptation. Only about 3% of the estimated $387 billion needed for adaptation has been allocated, with even less directed to locally-led organizations. While private capital flows into profitable sectors like renewable energy, the urgent needs of vulnerable communities, including adaptation financing, are being neglected. Despite clear evidence that investments in adaptation offer long-term economic and social benefits, financial systems continue to prioritize mitigation over resilience-building solutions that truly transform lives.

Our goal for this conversation is to explore ways to bridge the adaptation finance gap, scale locally-led solutions, and center frontline communities in the global climate response. Through interactive dialogue, we will examine how to unlock catalytic funding, drive policy changes, and foster cross-sector partnerships, all while offering a case study and roadmap for effectively implementing climate adaptation.