Qualitative Analysis: Adaptation Aid in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

Abstract

The previous two chapters provided an overview of who receives and who gives adaptation aid, and then analysed the most important drivers of adaptation aid allocation, first in a pooled sample of donor countries, and in a second step for the three selected case study countries. More specifically, Chap. 4 explored overall adaptation flows from 2010 through to 2015 and compared donors as well as recipients with regard to how much adaptation they gave or received. The data shows that adaptation aid was a small, but growing, share of development aid, with some donors investing more than 10% of their development aid in adaptation projects. Germany, Sweden, and the UK were among the largest adaptation donors, while sids were among the largest adaptation aid recipients, per capita as well as in percent of total development aid. Chapter 5 examined more systematically the drivers of adaptation aid. Our results suggest, among other things, that vulnerable countries indeed obtained relatively high levels of adaptation aid, at least when vulnerability is understood and measured as physical exposure and sensitivity to climate risks. Yet, there are important differences across donor countries. For instance, while we find that sids received significantly more adaptation aid than non-sids, not every donor gave more adaptation aid to the sids. Indeed, neither Germany nor Sweden supported sids specifically (see Chap. 5).