How do different conceptions and practices around Climate Finance impact outcomes for AFOLU sector climate transitions in Developing Nations?

This study will assess how different conceptions and practices within international climate finance influence outcomes within sectors in developing nations. To achieve this, the research will address the following research questions: How is the purpose of climate finance conceptualised by different stakeholders and actors within the climate finance space? How have these conceptualisations changed over time? What influence have different conceptualisations and approaches to climate finance had on levels of climate finance to land-use sectors? How do different climate finance conceptualisations and instruments change practices and approaches to land-use projects? How do these approaches change impacts and outcomes of climate projects within recipient nations? In answering these questions, this research seeks to improve governance of climate finance flows by highlighting the impacts of different conceptualisations and practices on how effectively climate finance achieves different policy objectives. Through this, the project will provide an evidence base to support design of land-use climate strategy and equitable and effective climate finance flows. This work is significant as, in addition to expanding on the consideration of climate finance impacts in the literature, it will also support the creation of effective policy-making to support sustainable development within the region, as well as understanding how climate finance initiatives can be best designed in order to support sustainable land-use practices and consumption and production within land-use sectors. In addition to this, by considering how different stakeholders perceive the role of climate finance along the governance landscape, this research seeks to formalise analysis of the acknowledged multi-level and cross-scalar nature of climate finance (Colenbrander et al, 2018). By integrating this multi-level approach, this work seeks to make a methodological contribution to the field of climate finance research by improving the consideration of climate finance in a holistic sense, and consideration of the role and impacts of different agents and practices in climate finance processes.