Project on Loss and Damage Finance
The Loss and Damage Finance Project is working to address two key issues: 

The first is to be able to mobilise finance at the scale of the needs. Research has projected that the economic cost of loss and damage per year will be between 290 billion and 580 billion USD by 2030 alone, escalating thereafter. In vulnerable developing countries households on the frontlines of climate change are currently bearing the brunt of the cost of loss and damage. The cost of addressing loss and damage is additional to the cost of adaptation, the estimated annual cost of which is now in the upper range of the projections for 2030: between 140 billion and 300 billion USD per year. We will therefore need to mobilise trillions of USD in climate finance to meet the needs on the ground. 

The second issue is providing thought leadership on how finance should be channelled to vulnerable developing countries and the vulnerable people and communities within them. After 30 years of delay, Parties finally agreed to establish a Loss and Damage Fund at COP27. This historic decision came after three decades of multilateral processes had failed to deliver a fund for loss and damage and was made possible because of the unity of climate vulnerable governments and the support of global civil society. 

The adopted decision under the new agenda item established: 

1. New funding arrangements to assist developing countries…in responding to loss and damage, including with a focus on addressing loss and damage; 

2. A fund for responding to loss and damage whose mandate includes a focus on addressing loss and damage; and;

3. A Transitional Committee to continue the work of operationalising the Fund in the run-up to COP28. 

To assure that historic decision is taken forward the L&DC’s Project on Loss and Damage Finance will work throughout 2023 to follow and engage with the Transitional Committee process to provide strategic inputs and technical advice to ensure it delivers what it must: recommendations of Loss and Damage finance that are fit for purpose, accessible to communities, adequate to needs, and funded based on the polluter pays principle.

For enquiries directly related to the Project on Loss and Damage Finance please contact:

info[@]lossanddamagecollaboration.org

Please also find the project's concept note here.
See concept note here:
This is a project which started at COP25 in Madrid 2019. At that meeting of the countries who are members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, the Santiago Network for averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change (Santiago Network) was established.

The Santiago Network offered hope to frontline communities in the climate crisis that a body had been created to help them address loss and damage. This body would make sure there was action and support being provided on the ground in their communities including helping them access finance, technology and build their capacity to address these impacts. This was in the context of a world where climate impacts are increasing, and this is being felt by the most vulnerable people in our society who are the least responsible for climate change. These impacts are rapidly becoming worse.


This project started under the banner of the Loss and Damage Collaboration, an informal group of practitioners, researchers, activists and decision makers from both the global North and South who have expertise on a range of topics relating to the need to address loss and damage. It had a number of projects, including the Santiago Network Project which developed a committed group from a range of backgrounds led by Doreen Stabinsky and Heidi White who were concerned that the Santiago Network might become no more than a website.

The Santiago Network Working Group, as it was then called, has since been tireless in seeking to steer the negotiations on the Santiago Network from something that had become a website to something that had a dedicated negotiations stream under the UNFCCC, and a comprehensive decision with dedicated finance, agreed form and functions and a process for review. This included publications; advocacy e.g. interventions at meetings of negotiators on the Santiago Network and participation in and chairing of meetings of the Adaptation and Loss and Damage Friends Group which is led by the UK COP26 Presidency team; as well as coordination, capacity building, and support on the ground at the COP26 negotiations in Glasgow, United Kingdom in November 2021.

At COP26 there was positive progress, and the work of the Santiago Network Project will now shift to the 2022 negotiations where financial arrangements will be further elaborated and a decision will be adopted regarding the form or ‘institutional arrangements’ of the Santiago Network to finalise the decision to operationalise the Santiago Network and enable it to provide the help that vulnerable communities need to survive.

The Santiago Network Project is open to members from any background. It is important that our input into the negotiations is well-informed and based on the best available advice. We are particularly concerned to involve marginalised groups whose voices are not always heard to ensure the best outcome possible for the negotiations. We cannot be perfect but we can be ambitious and try as much as possible to learn from the past so that the assistance that is urgently needed is provided. These communities need help now and we need to ensure that the Santiago Network becomes effectively operationalised at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

For enquiries directly related to the Santiago Network Project please contact the Project Lead heidimareewhite [@] gmail.com
Team Members
Co-Coordinator
Laura Schäfer
Senior Advisor - Climate Risk Management, Germanwatch (engages in the Loss and Damage Collaboration in a personal capacity).
Co-Coordinator
Eva Peace MUKAYIRANGA
Training Coordinator - Loss and Damage Youth Coalition (LDYC), and climate finance negotiator in the UNFCCC.
Co-Coordinator
Ben Wilson
Partner Advocacy Officer at the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF).
Technical Expert
LEIA ACHAMPONG
Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer - Climate Finance, Eurodad (engages in the Loss and Damage Collaboration in a personal capacity).
Technical Expert
Hyacinthe Niyitegeka
Hyacinthe is a water scientist and the coordinator of the L&DC. She co-founded the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition and co-leads their advocacy work. Hyacinthe joins monthly calls of the Loss and Damage Finance project and develops and contributes to policy briefs and background papers.
Project Outputs
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020