Pioneering Solutions in Digital Finance for Climate Resilience

Millions of people around the world are already experiencing the negative effects of climate change. Lasting droughts, soaring temperatures, wildfires and other extreme weather events are threatening the lives, livelihoods, and assets of people globally. However, the effects of these impacts are concentrated among those who are dependent on natural resources, the poor and vulnerable, and those in particular geographies, like urban settlements and coastal regions. Unfortunately, many of these exposed populations lack access to solutions and resources, like financial services, that can help mitigate their greater exposure to the negative impacts of climate change and enable them to participate in the climate transition.

While this imbalance is troubling, technological advances and increased reach of digital services offer an opportunity for climate resilience solutions to help vulnerable people anticipate, adapt, and build resilience to the physical impacts of climate change. Even as access to resilience solutions lags, digital finance innovations have been able to reach many climate-vulnerable populations.

At a high level, this infographic by BFA Global illustrates three groups of solutions: 1) solutions that help vulnerable people anticipate and recover from disasters caused by climate change, 2) solutions that enable households to adapt their livelihoods and assets given chronic changes to the climate, and 3) solutions that help build long-term resilience for communities and markets.