PHL needs more climate adaptation, resilience funding as disasters worsen — CIIP

By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Senior Reporter

SINGAPORE — The Philippines needs to mobilize more private and philanthropic funding for climate adaptation and resilience (CA&R), particularly to support local communities on the frontlines of extreme heat and flooding, according to the Centre for Impact Investing and Practices (CIIP), a Singapore-based nonprofit.

“The Philippines is a core market in Southeast Asia for CA&R because of the extreme effects of climate change, especially with all the typhoons, extreme heat and flooding that’s happening,” CIIP Director Hiu Chii Fen told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of the Philanthropy Asia Summit (PAS), organized by Singapore’s Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA) on Monday.

She noted that opportunities for CA&R funding in the Philippines include strengthening agri-food resilience, energy security, cold storage, access to credit, and initiatives that support local livelihood.

“The value of investing in adaptation and resilience is not just risk mitigation, but there are also very direct and immediate commercial drivers, including cost reduction and potential for generating revenue upside,” Ms. Hiu said.

More than $200 billion in CA&R financing is required annually across the region, but current flows are only at around $19 billion, according to a CIIP report, “Climate Adaptation and Resilience in Asia: Pricing Risk, Sizing Opportunities, Financing Solutions,” released on May 19 during the PAS.

By 2030, Asia will likely account for 75% of the global CA&R financing gap, CIIP noted, with companies expected to bear around $336 billion in annual climate costs.

The region’s climate financing gap is expected to further increase as climate change worsens, Ms. Hiu said.

The Philippines was ranked the world’s most disaster-prone nation out of 192 countries at the 2025 WorldRiskIndex by Germany’s Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft and Ruhr University Bochum.

Ms. Hiu added that the shortfall in climate funding is due to the dearth of CA&R funding in the region.

“Generally, adaptation and resilience have been less looked at from a climate perspective. There’s been a lot of focus on climate mitigation — which is basically on reducing carbon emissions — than also building resilience,” Ms. Hiu said.

Less than 10% of climate finance goes to CA&R initiatives, she added.

“But because the (CA&R) gap is widening and climate change is increasingly becoming more extreme, there is a big need for private sector to come in and fill the gap,” Ms. Hiu said. “Otherwise, I think governments are not able to address this gap on their own.”

She cited the work of Mayani PH, a homegrown agri-fisheries value chain platform that helps connect smallholder farmers and fishermen to direct buyers. The company has since expanded to providing inputs and credit to help producers to scale their operations and boost income.

Mayani is one of the mentees under the CIIP and Singapore-based PAA’s Amplifier mentorship programme.

The CIIP report identifies over 250 priority CA&R solutions in Asia, based on region-specific climate risks and hazards. It also looks into the existing gaps to financing adaption and resilience solutions.

CA&R financing in Asia has been constrained by limited data, according to CIIP Chief Executive Officer Dawn Chan.

“As climate risks intensify, stronger coordination between public, private, and philanthropic capital will be essential to accelerate action,” she said in a statement.

To address the region’s climate financing gap, the report also cited the need to address challenges on inaccessibility due to infrastructure and data gaps; uneven digital and financial literacy; and gender barriers.

It also noted the role of governments to encourage private capital in CA&R. These could be through fiscal incentives like subsidies, tax reductions, and premium credits; ensuring supportive regulatory frameworks; and raising public awareness, it said.

“Our hope is to put CA&R front and center to all funders, whether they are philanthropists, family offices, or commercial investors,” Ms. Hiu said.

The CIIP report was conducted in partnership with Temasek Holdings (Private) Ltd., Invesco Ltd., CGIAR Hub for Sustainable Finance (ImpactSF), and with support from the Dalberg group.