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Honorable Ministers,

Excellencies,

Distinguished Colleagues,

I am very pleased to welcome you all to today’s side event on Financing Adaptation for Building Resilience Against Climate-Related Disasters in Landlocked Developing Countries—the LLDCs. The 32 LLDCs face a unique set of disaster risks due to their geographic locations, remoteness, and limited access to international markets. More than half of the land in LLDCs is classified as dryland.  This makes 60% of their population living in these areas highly vulnerable to drought and desertification. Many LLDCs are in internal mountainous regions, facing unique challenges such as melting glaciers, landslides, and flash floods. LLDCs are over-reliant on hydropower. Hydropower accounts for 40% of their energy sources, making them susceptible to extreme climatic events, including droughts and floods. Their high dependency on agriculture also adds to their vulnerability to extreme weather events. Almost 55% people in LLDCs are employed in agriculture. And, climate induced disasters often undermine their complex transit routes, hampering their access to the international market.

Excellencies,

The LLDCs are indeed bearing disproportionate impacts of climate induced disasters. The incidence of climate-related disasters was about 70% higher in LLDCs than the world average in recent years. Disaster-related economic losses reached 1.7 percent of LLDCs’ GDP in 2021. Alarmingly, this is almost three times the world average. Clearly, LLDCs need urgent attention and much enhanced support of the international community to overcome these vulnerabilities, and to build capacity and resilience.   

Excellencies, Dear Colleagues,

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change gave explicit recognition to the unique vulnerabilities of landlocked and transit countries. Yet LLDCs often find themselves overlooked in global climate discussions. We need a paradigm shift in our approach. Mere recognition and global commitment are not going to be enough. We need concrete, urgent actions to translate our promises into actions to enable the LLDCs build resilience against climate induced disasters and shocks. Allow me to highlight a few priorities in this regard:

First, the ongoing climate crisis has increased manifold the demand for adaptation financing in LLDCs. Yet the amount of adaptation finance flows to LLDCs continue to fall short of international commitments. It is imperative to reverse this trend and ensure more adaptation finance for LLDCs to help them overcome their distinct disaster related challenges and vulnerabilities. Achieving enhanced adaptation action for LLDCs requires a substantial increase in the overall volume of finance, whether from public and private sources, or innovative financing instruments, directed towards adaptation efforts. Scaling up grants should be a priority to counteract LLDCs’ shrinking fiscal space.

Second, LLDCs need investment in climate-resilient infrastructure in key sectors such as transport, energy, and ICT.  A dedicated funding facility for LLDC climate-resilient infrastructure would help these countries better anticipate and adapt to climate effects, coupled with capacity development support for bankable climate-resilient projects.

And thirdly, LLDCs require support to put into place multi-hazard early warning systems. The Secretary-General’s Early Warning for All Initiative will greatly contribute to this, and efforts should be made to ensure LLDCs are among the priority countries. These actions should go hand in hand with the development and strengthening of national and regional strategies for disaster risk reduction to achieve the targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Excellencies,

The Third United Nations Conference for Landlocked Developing Countries, to be held in June in Kigali, Rwanda, is coming at a critical moment. The Conference will agree on a new Programme of Action that will guide the development trajectory of the LLDCs for the next decade. Climate change responses must be a top priority of the next Programme of Action. I look forward to working with you all to make the LLDC3 Conference a success and making climate adaptation and resilience a key focus of the next Programme of Action.

I will rest it here.

I thank you.