Maximizing the Peace and Social Dividends of Climate Action

Read the Full Report

Overview

Climate change is hitting hardest in the places least able to cope with it. The impacts fall most heavily on people in settings affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV), where many already face a "triple burden" of high climate vulnerability, low resilience, and weak social dynamics such as trust, cohesion, and inclusion.

Despite the urgency, these contexts remain underserved by the global climate agenda, which does not fully account for the role of social and peace factors. They increasingly host the world's poorest people, yet climate and FCV efforts still largely operate as separate domains, too often overlooking these dynamics and risking unintended harm or maladaptation.

There is, however, a growing opportunity. A widening body of research shows that well-designed climate action can strengthen resilience while generating "triple dividends": climate gains alongside peace and social outcomes such as stronger livelihoods, jobs, and more capable institutions.

Maximizing the Peace and Social Dividends of Climate Action responds to this opportunity. It draws on new World Bank research and, at its core, nine case studies of climate action in fragile and conflict-affected countries, developed over two years with research organizations and practitioners. The report argues that social and peace dynamics are central, not peripheral, to addressing climate risk in fragile settings, and that better outcomes will require everyone, from decision-makers to frontline practitioners, to work differently.

Key findings

The report's evidence spans global financing, national and multilateral planning, and operational delivery. Among the headline findings:

• Climate risk is concentrated in fragile settings. An estimated 40% of people in FCV-affected countries face high climate risk, more than double the rate in other IDA and IBRD countries (around 20%). Nine of the ten most climate-vulnerable countries are on the World Bank's fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) list.

• And the costs compound. Three years after an extreme weather event, FCV-affected countries lose roughly 4% of cumulative GDP, four times the loss in more stable settings (IMF). By 2030, FCS economies are projected to host more than half of the world's extreme poor, around 400 million people.

• While the climate finance gap is real, it mirrors the wider development financing gap. FCV countries receive less climate finance per person (around US$9.94 between 2016 and 2021, against US$18.98 for non-FCV countries across all major funders), but as a share of total development finance the two groups are almost identical, at 3.0% and 3.1%. This suggests the shortfall is not climate-specific, but reflects the same systemic barriers that constrain development and humanitarian financing more broadly.

• Peace and social dividends are almost invisible in climate accounting data. Just 0.02% of climate allocations in FCV settings are co-tagged for peacebuilding, 0.6% for humanitarian, and 1% for social-sustainability objectives, despite the considerable indirect contributions that climate action can have in supporting the drivers of peace and social sustainability (whether directly or indirectly).

• Climate plans rarely account for conflict. National climate plans are nearly universal, 73 of 75 FCV countries have submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), yet peace and conflict are the least-addressed dimension of both NDCs and National Adaptation Plans.

What works: insights from the case studies

The heart of the report is operational. Its nine in-depth case studies span fragile and conflict-affected contexts from the Sahel to the Pacific. Outcomes depend not just on which activities are funded, but on how they are designed and delivered.

Across the cases, six insights stand out for what makes climate action effective and durable in fragile settings:

1. Prioritizing social and peace outcomes such as cohesion and inclusion make climate action more durable

2. Strengthening institutional capacity improves sustainability, legitimacy, and effectiveness.

3. Jobs and livelihoods are key entry points in economies that depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods.

4. Understanding and monitoring the FCV context improves effectiveness and helps avoid maladaptation.

5. Investing in trust and collaboration across the project cycle sustains outcomes.

6. Flexibility and adaptive management allow projects to adjust as conditions shift.

These insights distill into a new operational framework built around two questions: what to invest in and how to deliver it.

Recommendations

Better practice will fall short unless policymakers, funders, and decision-makers also improve the wider enabling environment. The report makes three high-level recommendations:

• On financing (global). Climate action in FCV settings cannot rely on dedicated climate finance alone. Funders should align climate, development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding finance around shared outcomes, build FCV countries' readiness to deploy resources, and adopt measurement that captures climate co-benefits alongside peace and social dividends.

• On planning (national and multilateral). Climate planning can integrate climate, peace, and social objectives, but only if it is inclusive, locally grounded, and linked to broader FCV efforts. Planners should build FCV dynamics, peace and social dividends, and implementation realities into the process.

• On operations (frontline delivery). Leaders should empower practitioners to take context seriously, require climate programs to invest in social and peace outcomes, and embrace complexity and coordination throughout.

Done well, climate action can advance resilience, stability, and development at once, with deliberate design, better measurement, and a willingness to work differently.

The work was made possible with the support of the State and Peacebuilding Fund (SPF), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and ODI Global, and benefited from partnerships and consultations with the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund, among others.