Preferences on funding humanitarian aid and disaster management under climatic losses and damages: A multinational Delphi panel

Losses and damages from climate change and the frequency of extreme events will burden our global budgetary constraints and adaptive capacities. Scientific and analytical support for allocating public funding in humanitarian aid and disaster management to counter them involves determining the most pertinent criteria to use or where to design forecasting. Their priorities are often assumed, and assumptions can be ill-fitting. Thus, we asked the key users of such information for their preferences.

A two-round anonymous Delphi method utilising global frameworks for a funding allocation simulation was employed to survey the stated preferences of a stratified panel of losses and damages experts (N=36). They were experts from 19 countries of origin representing international organisations (e.g., United Nations, European Union, World Bank), the research sector, the public sector, and civil society (e.g., Save the Children, World Vision). The consensus was analysed with parametric measures.

We find that the near-future preference for magnitude-indicating criteria, such as people-centric and disaster risk-based, outweighs the importance of indicators related to governance, the rule of law, or a socio-economic aspect. Likewise, financing adaptation options to climate change-related risks to food security, human health, and water security are a high near-future priority for minimising losses and damages compared to, for example, risks to living standards or risks to terrestrial and ocean ecosystems. The covariance suggests that these priorities are an emergent preference in the losses and damages sector. Thus, it raises further questions on what we can and should prioritise with scarce resources.