Decentralising Climate Action: Why Pakistan’s Resilience Must Be Built Locally

Climate change is no longer a distant threat for Pakistan — it is a lived reality. From catastrophic floods and prolonged droughts to urban heat stress and worsening water scarcity, climate shocks are now shaping livelihoods, economic growth, and social stability across the country.

Yet despite growing international attention and rising climate finance commitments, a critical question persists: why does climate funding so often fail to translate into real resilience on the ground?

The answer lies less in money and more in how climate action is governed.

The Centralisation Bottleneck

Pakistan’s climate finance architecture remains heavily centralised, flowing primarily through federal and provincial channels that are often disconnected from local realities.

While national climate commitments and provincial development strategies exist on paper, climate risks are experienced at the community, municipal, and district levels — where local governments rarely have meaningful authority over planning or financing.

This governance disconnect has created a structural bottleneck:

• Projects are designed far from impact zones
• Generic templates replace local risk assessments
• Implementation slows under bureaucratic layers
• Outcomes fall short despite rising climate awareness

Neighbourhood flooding, groundwater depletion, urban heat exposure, and rural drought vulnerabilities frequently go unaddressed because decision-making remains distant from lived risk.

Outdated Systems Blocking Climate Adaptation

One of the most persistent obstacles is Pakistan’s continued reliance on centralised project planning frameworks such as the PC-1 system.

Originally designed for large infrastructure development, these approval mechanisms are poorly suited to:

• Community-level adaptation projects
• Nature-based solutions
• Urban heat resilience measures
• Flexible, data-driven climate responses

For local governments, these processes are often too complex and slow, effectively excluding them from shaping climate solutions — even though they sit on the frontline of climate impacts.

The challenge is not removing accountability.
It is modernising climate governance for 21st-century risks.

Why Locally Led Climate Finance Works Better

Policy experts increasingly advocate for decentralised climate planning and funding models tailored to small and medium-scale adaptation initiatives.

Key reforms could include:

Simplified Climate Project Approvals

Streamlined templates designed specifically for local resilience projects — supported by safeguards and technical assistance.

Direct Finance Access for Cities and Districts

Allowing capable local governments to access climate funds directly instead of waiting through multiple administrative layers.

Pilot Decentralised Climate Programs

District and divisional pilot schemes to test faster approval systems, data-driven planning, and local accountability before scaling nationally.

These steps would dramatically reduce delays while ensuring investments respond to real community vulnerabilities.

Data Is the Foundation of Resilience

Another persistent gap is the lack of hyper-local climate data.

Without detailed vulnerability mapping and neighbourhood-level risk information:

• Flood management remains reactive
• Heat action plans stay generic
• Water resilience projects miss critical hotspots

Investing in local climate data systems is essential for shifting from broad policy promises to targeted, life-saving interventions.

Innovative Climate Finance Must Include Local Governments

Beyond public funding, Pakistan needs financing mechanisms that crowd in private and blended capital — but only if local governments are treated as credible partners.

Potential tools include:

• Dedicated climate resilience windows within national funds
• Nature-based solution bonds
• Risk-sharing instruments for urban adaptation
• Municipal climate investment platforms

When paired with decentralised authority and strong data, these mechanisms can unlock scalable resilience.

The Role of Academia and Evidence

Universities and research institutions can play a transformative role by:

• Conducting local vulnerability assessments
• Piloting decentralised governance models
• Supporting monitoring and evaluation systems
• Training local officials in climate planning

Bridging the gap between climate finance theory and real-world delivery requires sustained evidence-based engagement.

Resilience Will Be Built Locally — Or Not at All

Decentralising climate action does not mean shifting responsibility downward without support. It means aligning:

✔ Authority
✔ Finance
✔ Data
✔ Accountability

with the communities where climate impacts are most severe.

Climate policy discussions increasingly agree on one reality:

Pakistan’s climate resilience will be built locally — or it will not be built at all.

Without governance reform, climate finance risks remaining trapped in strategies and policy documents while communities continue to bear the cost of inaction.

The time has come to move beyond centralised climate planning and embrace locally-led, evidence-driven, and accountable climate action.