Research into the international development sector and its effectiveness by the H & S Davidson Trust points to a flawed system badly in need of reform. In this series of interviews, we talk to figures in the sector in order to get their views on how we can co-create the narrative of the system we want and how we obtain it. In this interview, Andrew Milner talks to Shloka Nath of the India Climate Collaborative.

Andrew Milner: The thesis behind this piece of work is that the development sector is not working as well as it should. What’s your take on that, both from your own personal point of view and from ICC’s point of view. Obviously the main challenge you’re focusing on is climate change. How much of your work do you find intersects with other elements of what people are calling the polycrisis of increased migration, increased inequality, etc.?

Shloka Nath, India Climate Collaborative

Shloka Nath: The challenge for anyone working to tackle the climate crisis, and especially climate in philanthropy, is that it’s such an existential systemic issue that cuts across every sector of the economy and every aspect of life. It’s a threat multiplier that is already exacerbating existing inequalities, so I don’t think there’s any pathway to sustainable development that is innocent of climate any more. Climate is a lens that needs to be applied across issues.

Do you have to factor that in when you’re working with other philanthropists?

Yes. But because of the breadth of issues climate change impacts, one of the biggest challenges in supporting philanthropy has been developing a shared taxonomy for ‘climate’ giving – a common framework or understanding that determines how we frame the challenge for India and how we choose to address it. The global North has one story, and it’s very much an emissions game for them; although climate risks are increasing, the conversation is more mitigation-focused.

The trade-offs seem a lot more acute in this part of the world, where development crises and socio-economic challenges are intertwined with climate risks.

Meanwhile, the global South is dealing with a multitude of development crises or socio-economic challenges because these economies are still growing. So, the trade-offs seem a lot more acute in this part of the world. How you talk about the climate challenge is a lot more nuanced, a lot more tied in to people and what the pros and cons are of one decision over another. Those sorts of negotiations become a lot more acute than in other parts of the world where they aren’t as vulnerable to the impacts of climate, and they have fewer vulnerable populations that will be exposed to these impacts. It changes everything when you’re dealing with the level of crises that we are.

As you said, you’re at the sharp end of the climate crisis, with the global South industrialising or still in a development phase. How do you reconcile those two things?

I don’t think there is a way to separate those two for emerging economies like India. Climate is an additional risk; it is exacerbating existing socio-economic vulnerabilities. Three out of four districts in India are vulnerable to floods, to droughts, to cyclones; we know that heat stress is affecting health as well as the economic productivity of a majority of India’s workforce, and this is true across the global South.

There’s no question that we need to address the climate challenge as we seek to develop and to grow. But what you choose to emphasise or prioritise and at what time is going to be critical. When you’re transitioning your economy there are going to be winners and losers, especially when you’re transitioning to a low-carbon economy and not everyone is going to be carried forward in that transition. So, you have to create adequate social safety nets to protect those individuals and communities, to build more resilience into your economy, and that’s what we saw was sorely lacking during the Covid-19 crisis. Those social safety nets either did not exist or fell apart.  The urgency for us is therefore one of building resilience, that is, can we surface the tensions or cracks that hinder resilience and address them in ways that feel just and equitable? And can we do this in a timeline that helps us prevent the worst catastrophes of the climate crisis?

How do you bring these things together?

While India is advancing on its climate goals, there is a huge finance gap across the global South. Climate finance needs across the developing world are in the trillions, India’s are in the billions, and while philanthropy may never meet that amount, we also know that philanthropic capital is catalytic. It’s critical for capacity building; it helps non-profits innovate and design extraordinary and equitable climate solutions; it helps pilot innovative models and allows time and investment in research and evidence building for nascent sectors.

Public and private capital are insufficient for these; they are mostly unwilling to fund this kind of work, or cannot fund due to their regulatory structures, and there are also increasing restrictions on accessing international funding. So, there is an urgent need to build a self-reliant philanthropic ecosystem in India for climate action, and that is really what we try to do at the ICC. We try to capacitate the funder ecosystem to fund bigger, better, bolder climate solutions, and we work with diverse actors from research institutions to government agencies to policy think-tanks to grassroots organisations, you name it, to surface catalytic, impactful climate solutions.

I think the challenge in India is similar to challenges in many countries across the global South. Not all sectors are equally mature. For example, the renewable energy sector in India is very evolved. But it’s not the same for food systems, for instance. That’s a very nascent sector and not enough organisations are working on it, so they need to be capacitated to do more. We have to connect that ecosystem so that different stakeholders are speaking to each other and can collaborate; we also need to be able to surface more catalytic solutions and build business models that will take those opportunities to scale. There’s so much groundwork that still needs to happen in a sector like that and that’s when you can drive funding there, when you can really start scaling solutions and taking them further. So, we build funder capacities but also work on designing, on connecting, on building coalitions, seeding underfunded spaces and de-risking opportunities for funders.

We also build more intelligence within the climate ecosystem by asking questions. What are the inequities that exist across the ecosystem? What is the state of different sectors and what must funders pay attention to? An important question is, what kind of data or intelligence gaps exist, and how can we build this intelligence as a public good for climate actors? For example, we realised that data on climate philanthropy is fragmented and inaccessible in India and hinders strategic climate philanthropy. So, we developed a ‘Trends in climate philanthropy’ assessment this year, where we mapped climate giving in India for the first time. We gathered publicly available data on 65 funders, corporate, domestic, and international, and combined that with qualitative insights through conversations with funders. We sought to answer which geographies, sectors, and levers of impact in India are being funded and which need more funding.

A lot of funding from corporate philanthropy, for example, goes to places where corporates have been present for years, like more ‘prominent’ cities and states, but we found that these priorities don’t fully align with climate vulnerability. Assam, a state in North East India, for instance, is by some estimates the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, but received less than two per cent of corporate philanthropic funding between 2018 and 2023. We hope for research like this to be a recurring effort. That’s just an example of how we surface intelligence that will help not just us but the overall ecosystem.

What kind of appetite are you finding from Indian funders or donors generally to get involved? Is that one of your challenges?

Yes and no. The good part is that there is more appetite than there has ever been.  In India, heat has become a huge issue, so the experience of the climate crisis and its urgency has come into everyone’s daily lives in a way that has never happened before. The second thing is that the Government of India has set very ambitious climate targets and when the government is so proactive, there’s a huge trickle-down effect into the economy and that has also seeped into national consciousness. But not everyone feels that they have agency to act on climate, and not everyone is clear on whose responsibility it is to act.

For instance, a lot of the development sector will point to business and government as leading the charge. I think civil society, and therefore philanthropy, is still catching up in terms of where they feel they can have impact and that’s exactly what the ICC helps with. As an ecosystem enabler, we point out where the spaces and opportunities for transformative action lie; we also do portfolio advisory, we support with intelligence, we co-design solutions with partner organisations in cases where holistic solutions may not exist, we help build capacity for organisations in the ecosystem. We really try to work across the philanthropic ecosystem to ensure that the funding goes where it’s needed most.

We often say that philanthropy isn’t what we’re focused on, climate is our client; we help philanthropy respond to India’s climate needs. So, no working with philanthropies’ or philanthropists’ pet projects. That’s allowed us to be very clear on our mission and what needs to happen.

So, yes, it’s about directing more funding to those critical spaces, but in India, it’s also really about supporting leadership for India, by India. Why don’t we have many business leaders and philanthropists who are bringing the global South’s narrative challenge to global platforms? The pathways for countries like India are different; they are not going to be the way that the global North is imagining the problem or how they seek to solve it. And it shouldn’t be. But we need very clear voices with very clear messages on what those solutions should be, and they’re very often bottom-up and not top-down.

Do you see that as part of ICC’s work to find these champions, or to be the champion yourself?

No. We’re very clear that we don’t want to be the mouthpiece. What’s critical for us is ensuring that we are helping develop enough voices and champions in India’s climate ecosystem. We don’t represent one agenda or one funder’s interests, and we are mission-agnostic in that we aren’t selecting one sector over another. We’re really about focusing on what will solve India’s climate challenge. We’re not trying to educate people on climate or on clean air, we’re saying that, if you are interested in climate or you are already at the point where you’re ready to direct catalytic capital, we can guide you in that journey – this is where you give, and these are the organisations, the sectors, the spaces, the opportunities. Unlike any other sector in emerging economies like India, the climate crisis has a clock on it and that’s what will continue to separate us from other parts of the development sector.

Do you see any parts of your work moving faster or making more progress than others?

I wish I had a clear answer for you on this, but sometimes it feels like tying your shoelaces while you’re running. The donor piece is evolving super rapidly. More requests and work are coming in than we can manage, so we’re having to staff up. We’re also really focused on identifying and co-designing the right kinds of opportunities for funders, to ensure humankind doesn’t repeat past mistakes, and so, while climate is urgent, there is a huge sense of responsibility that demands patience and time for ideation, testing, collaboration, etc. But one thing I’d like to hone in on though, is this idea of equity while developing; it drives all of our work and shapes our idea of success. Equity clarifies our vision for the future. The goal during the climate/energy transition is climate, environmental, and socio-economic transformation, not just economic growth, and philanthropists in this part of the world are starting to understand that.  Emissions reduction and mitigation are important, but they go hand in hand with equity.

I can give you a couple of examples to show you why equity is central to how we think about progress. We’ve helped successfully co-create models of solutions, and we’ve brought in a diversity of actors to collaborate as well.

Local actors are definitely at the centre of equitable climate action, and key to changing how we do collaboration, where we direct capital, etc. Something we keep asking ourselves at the ICC is, whose future are we securing?”

One is the Harit Bharat Fund or the Green India Fund, a collaborative initiative created and co-led by many partners, including WRI, WRI India, the ICC, Pune Knowledge Cluster, Synapses, Spectrum Impact, Transform Rural India Foundation, and supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. It’s a locally-led land restoration fund with an initial focus on Central India and it looks to balance mitigation with the livelihood needs of local communities, food and nutrition security, and healthy ecosystems. It’s about capacitating those communities to be land restoration champions and re-thinking how philanthropy can support local actors. For example, it also has a blended finance component. We brought in a domestic philanthropist who gave debt instead of a grant to incentivise local innovation in land restoration.  So, we see philanthropy being a critical part of co-creation and collaboration in these exciting, emerging spaces, and that’s really what we’re trying to do.

The second initiative is the Climate Resilience Atlas for India, which is being developed by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water under their Climate Resilience initiative. The ICC seeded CEEW’s efforts to build this Atlas in 2020, and they created a Climate Vulnerability Index to examine, identify, assess and predict climate risks such as droughts, floods, and cyclones at national and sub-national levels. They found that 8 in 10 Indians reside in districts vulnerable to extreme climate events, that increasingly, we’re seeing regions become prone to multiple risks or seeing a swapping trend – where traditionally flood-prone areas are becoming drought-prone, and vice-versa.

Data like this is being made available to civil society, policymakers, etc. It is turning top-down decision-making on its head because it’s making data on local vulnerabilities accessible and available to local decision- makers all the way down to the district level. Sub-national governments are already integrating this data into their climate or heat action plans. This effort is also going beyond just assessing risks, to also exploring how local risks can inform intelligent solution design, whether nature-based solutions or climate-proofing infrastructure, and is becoming a model for other global South countries to learn from.

The Reform in Development initiative which has commissioned these interviews has got what it’s calling four pathways – equal voice for local communities in decision-making, increased collaboration, increased unrestricted and longer-term funding, and changing the role of INGOs from being donor-led to being led by local circumstances. Obviously you’re all about collaboration and the mapping exercise involves local communities, making the data available for them to make their own decisions.  But what about unrestricted funding from donors and the changing role of INGOs. What importance do you attach to them?

Our initiatives are co-designed and they are ground-up. We put a lot of emphasis on what communities need, involving them in the design of our initiatives through the partner organisations that we work with. I think the idea of collaboration is to ensure intelligent solution design, and to institutionalise the space that communities are entitled to across these initiatives. So designing actively for collaboration is about facilitating a shift in power dynamics and that’s something that we’re acutely aware of.

I would also say a big focus for us is increasing unrestricted and longer-term funding. We have to get funders to really acknowledge the long-term nature of systemic change, and respond to the needs of the ecosystem, which means that they have to become more flexible with levers of impact as well. I’ll give you an example. In India, funders are often hesitant to invest in capacity building because the timelines for impact are much longer, building capacity is very complex, they don’t have control over how those funds are used. Conversely, we know that building the capacity of local climate actors is critical to advancing India’s climate goals as well as building local resilience. Climate is simultaneously a global and hyper-local issue, yet we’re not arming those frontline organisations and communities that are really dealing with its negative impacts day in and day out. That is a big gap for a climate- vulnerable country like India.

There’s no pathway to sustainable development that is innocent of climate any more; climate is a lens that needs to be applied across issues.

Another initiative we’re supporting is the Grow4Climate Fund, created by Edelgive Foundation. The original GROW Fund (Grassroots, Resilience, Ownership, and Wellness) emerged in response to the Covid-19 pandemic to support grassroots organisations to self-sustain or stay resilient during that time of crisis. Learning from the role philanthropy plays in times of crises, the Grow4Climate Fund is focused on the climate crisis, and aims to do three things: build organisational capacities, build climate expertise within these civil society organisations, and build institutional resilience.

We’re really excited about this because in India, the Central Government sets ambition when it comes to climate goals. They announce India’s NDCs, declare adaptation goals, budgets, etc., but the work is in large part implemented at the state level, so sub-national action is where you’re seeing significant climate decision-making play out. State governments are building roadmaps for their states to transition and local adaptation and mitigation needs are being defined by them; but civil society organisations who work in those geographies are not adequately capacitated to act on climate. They must be brought into the fold so they are equipped to deal with what’s happening on the ground. This is even more necessary because, in India, a lot of sectors that are critical to the climate challenge are region-specific, like agriculture, and fall under a state government’s authority.

Is that because philanthropic money is flowing to NGOs that are known and are national in scope, while the state ones are unseen?

In India, for the past 20 years, the climate ecosystem has been supported mainly by international funding and that funding often went to big organisations in Tier-1 cities like Delhi and it focused on policy, on big-picture thinking. There was no connection to local grassroots organisations, local governments, district organisations, etc, and, even now, there is very little funding going towards sub-national action. It’s not just communities and CSOs, the states also need to build out things like adaptation budgets and they have to update and start implementing their state climate action plans. There’s a lot of technical capacity building needed for state governments. That is where civil society plays such a strong role but the inequities across the funding landscape are tremendous.

Domestic philanthropy is now starting to enter the space and they are the ones with the local networks, who’ve been funding grassroots organisations for decades, and who are deeply connected with local and state and district governments. They can also bring a strong intersectional lens given their history funding education, gender, health, livelihoods, etc., and so if you can co-ordinate international and domestic funding in such a way that we can marry the big picture vision with these deep community level networks and grassroots work, you can actually co-create a holistic set of priorities and solutions that meet diverse climate needs.

You mentioned earlier that corporate funding is concentrated in the places where the corporates have their headquarters. There’s now The Companies Act, with mandatory CSR. Is that changing the pattern of corporate funding or is it just more money going to the same issues?

It’s a slow process, Andrew. We are working with corporate philanthropy on a number of initiatives where we’re helping them direct philanthropic capital effectively towards diverse, holistic climate solutions, instead of one tree-planting project after another. But the regulatory restrictions are a constraint. There is no clear climate signalling in Schedule VII of The Companies Act that dictates climate priorities or categories for Corporate Social Responsibility funders. There’s a big bracket for environment, and climate falls under that or is conflated with that, according to many funders. Now, I think the jury is still out on whether the lack of clear definition gives corporates more room to play, or hinders climate ambition for funders.

There is, however, a lot of flexibility even within how those categories in Schedule VII are framed, across priorities spanning livelihoods, agriculture, environment, urban and rural resilience, etc. So, instead of focusing on changing or amending the law, we’re trying to work with CSR funders to add a climate lens across these priorities getting them to think about climate resilience while supporting farmers, or low-income groups in urban and rural areas..

So corporate funding could go to these areas under the existing provisions if they were rethought or slightly recalibrated?

Exactly. Our current emphasis is on identifying holistic climate solutions that tackle multiple risks that communities face and don’t cause additional harm, and finding funders who share this lens for risk and equity. If climate was designated as a separate category, I’m not sure if that would necessarily or by itself direct more capital towards appropriate solutions. Signalling is important, but do we need to be fixated on it or wait for labels? Climate cuts across most development priorities and the important thing is to get that message out – that climate is a lens and cannot be solved for in isolation.

The whole development sector is very complex and involves different groupings. Is there one thing or one set of things that needs to change? Does somebody need to move faster or is there some form co-ordination that needs to happen to make these things more effective?

One is definitely that funders are not necessarily thinking very holistically about climate yet, and that’s a challenge for us. I’ll go through the different stakeholders one by one.

Starting with philanthropy, it’s the culture of philanthropy that needs to evolve. It would be great to see more patience from funders, to see them testing out different models and inclusive collaborative solutions. It is uncharted territory for them, it requires a much higher appetite for risk, but you need to be able to set more ambitious visions for systems change in India.

I also want to see a greater willingness for saying no to ‘false’ solutions. We need more funders who can actually back India’s climate ecosystem with integrity. They need to be able to invest time in building trusted networks of partners, adopting solutions that will benefit vulnerable communities and a real appetite for deeper collaboration with different actors. Collaborating is time consuming of course, but it is immensely rewarding, so that’s something that we need to continue to see, as well as constantly placing community interest at the centre of group efforts.

All governments can do better globally, but the Government of India is being very ambitious and, compared to the US or the EU, its efforts are quite tremendous already, so I would rather urge philanthropy to aid government-led efforts, for example by facilitating seamless implementation between the centre and the states through better co-ordination, helping build out the necessary road maps, provide technical capacity, ensure that civil society is capacitated to represent the needs of communities who are dealing with climate impacts, ensuring that this is an equitable socio-economic transition. There’s a lot of work to be done by many actors in India, and philanthropy is a critical and core partner.

We do need more hard data and evidence building to identify pathways for India that benefit the most vulnerable and also cause the least harm to all, and we do need better models for participatory decision-making. I think we have to be clear that, as there are often trade-offs when it comes to the climate challenge, the solutions must be grounded in local realities. They can’t carry funder-led visions that are exclusionary or could potentially cause damage. We also need up-to-date, bottom-up, risk assessments to understand and predict evolving needs of communities on the ground and often, climate decision-makers aren’t able to do enough of this prior to deciding upon solutions. We look at the silver bullet solutions sometimes and climate is too complex and nuanced for that.

From what you’re saying, the heart of certainly the climate challenge, possibly of development issues generally in India lies at the state level and the key players are local civil society groups, local communities and state governments. Would that be a fair assessment?

Local actors are definitely at the centre of equitable climate action, and key to changing how we do collaboration, where we direct capital, etc. Something we keep asking ourselves at the ICC is, whose future are we securing? With philanthropy, we have to be really mindful of this question, and if this isn’t at the forefront of funders’ decision-making and if we’re not very clear about the answer, the world will again run into a lot of trouble. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if philanthropy has ever caused or brought about lasting societal change, and not just philanthropy, international development reform. The climate crisis is really forcing a reckoning for philanthropy that’s been a long time coming. It’s posing essential questions about the nature of who we are as a species, as climate actors, as leaders, who we want to become, and the kind of future we want to co-shape. We’re going to need to fundamentally transform the way we live on this planet, so it’s a ‘here and now, now or never’ moment for philanthropy.

The integrity of philanthropy is at stake and the climate crisis is shining a light on that. These big picture questions are troubling, but simultaneously, there’s no doubt that communities and civil society need patient, flexible, compassionate capital, and they need it urgently.

How do we rise to this challenge?  Yes, we need capital to solve this crisis, we know that, but how we use it, what kind of solutions it supports, and who benefits from it will really determine how valuable philanthropy is going forward.

Andrew Milner is features editor at Alliance magazine