Local Climate Adaptive Living (LoCAL) Facility
Loans
Guarantees
Performance-based grants
Building resilient economies that can withstand the impacts of climate change requires investment. UN Capital Development Fund is committed to working with partners to increase finance for adaptation at the local level.
To drive capital to communities on the climate change frontline, UNCDF is broadening our offer to Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and African nations through the Local Climate Adaptive Living (LoCAL) Facility, which now includes a new private sector window: LoCAL+.
LoCAL+ continues to provide a standard internationally recognized mechanism that helps local government authorities in developing and Least Developed Countries access the climate finance, capacity building and technical support they need to respond and adapt to climate change.
LoCAL+ also offers private sector financing to provide guarantees, loans and other tailored financial products to small and medium-sized enterprises and service providers working in the green economy.
A beekeeper tending hives in Uganda. Photo: UNCDF.
Where we work
To date, over 30 countries have engaged UNCDF's LoCAL Facility, recognising its value in delivering climate finance and adaptation investment where it’s needed - the local level.
Subnational finance
As part of the UNCDF 2026 – 2029 Strategic Framework, UNCDF is committed to supporting local governments, cities, municipalities and non-state actors to access capital for resilience and local infrastructure services in the pursuit of localized prosperity.
Local governments have the potential to play a decisive role in building resilience to climate change, because they are:
1. Responsible for many of the services most impacted by climate change, such as:
2. Well positioned to understand the diversity and complexity of local realities as well as to identify the needs and priorities of local communities in developing responses.
- Local governments have the legitimacy and convening power to coordinate, co-finance and interact with stakeholders that include national-level institutions, local departments, civil society organizations, the private sector and local communities.
- Local governments actions can complement and magnify central government responses to the climate change challenge.
Yet local governments in Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and many African nations face multiple obstacles to delivering on this potential, such as:
- limited budgets that reduce their ability to cover the additional costs of climate change adaptation
- central government usually controls budgetary allocations for climate change–related expenditures
- fiscal transfers from national governments are typically earmarked for recurring expenditures, which leaves little room for discretionary capital investment at the local level
News and media
Our partners
At the sub-national level, local governments and local communities are both partners and beneficiaries of UN Capital Development Fund as we work together to deliver on the commitments of LoCAL+. They directly lead or contribute to key steps of the process through participatory planning and mainstreaming, and implementation and oversight of adaptation measures and investments. They benefit from capacity building through on-the-job learning, access to technical support and guidance for long-term institutional strengthening.
At the national level, LoCAL+ generally works with central ministries in charge of decentralization, environment and climate change, planning and finance, and in-country development partners. Central ministries coordinate country efforts, support local governments through strategic guidance and services, and are leading the preparation for expansion and national roll-out of LoCAL+ in Phases II and III. In-country development partners, which vary from country to country, provide technical and financial support.
| Title | Type | Date |
|---|
ISO: An international standard for local governments
The UNCDF LoCAL Facility provides technical assistance and tools for the LDCs to access climate finance.
In 2022, ISO 14093:22 “Mechanism for financing local adaptation to climate change — Performance based climate resilience grants — Requirements and guidelines”, was developed using the methodology and experiences of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and countries implementing the Local Climate Adaptive Living, or LoCAL Facility.
