Apr 28, 2023
When the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) launched 15 years ago, one concept was foundational to its design and ambition: Transformational Change.
This concept underpins CIF’s investment criteria and is a pillar of its knowledge and learning mandate to ensure that what CIF delivers is not incremental change, but a holistic, wide, and fundamental change. CIF defines Transformational Change as:
“Fundamental change in systems relevant to climate action with large-scale positive impacts that shift and accelerate the trajectory of progress towards climate neutral, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable development pathways.”
– Transformational Change Concepts, September 2021
CIF’s operational model requires it to partner with multilateral development banks to deliver climate investments in over 70 countries. Transformational change is incorporated into CIF’s climate finance programs in numerous ways which means investment partners can be more intentional about the kind of change they want to see.
Gareth Phillips of the African Development Bank works closely with CIF and recognizes how baking in particular elements of change, for example, gender indicators, can ensure intentional positive outcomes rather than accidental byproducts.
There is a growing global consensus that to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, a fundamental, transformative change is needed. A 2020 joint report by United Nations agencies noted that “Transformational action can no longer be postponed if the Paris Agreement targets are to be met.”
In 2021, former United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa, said ahead of COP26: “This is the year we can get it right…the year that we achieve a pivotal, transformational change in global climate policy and action.”
More recently in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), called for “transformative action” in various sectors and approaches. This was not the first time the concept has made its way into this high-level and influential report: it is recognized at the highest levels that transformational change is critical to confronting the urgency and complexity of the climate crisis.
As CIF's ambitions grow, our climate investments continue to demonstrate why transformational change frames our vision of the future as well as anchors our delivery at a critical juncture in the fight against a climate catastrophe.
Transformational change must address a myriad of legacies associated with the climate crisis: from the systemic to the historic, or from the political to the economic − the deep and drastic changes required will leave lasting impacts on countries and their citizens. Camilla Roman of the International Labor Organization (ILO) works at the intersection of transformation change and just transitions. She sees transformational change as the thread that connects the wide-ranging and diverse facets of tackling the climate crisis. But in doing so, she notes, any change must have justice, fairness, and social inclusivity at its center.
In its evolution as a leading multilateral fund in climate finance, CIF acts as convener of a growing community of practice working to operationalize the concept of transformational change. The Transformational Change Learning Partnership (TCLP) is a ground-breaking multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder group of policymakers, practitioners, community leaders, and funders working to embed transformational change in their own work and communities. Watch this animation to learn more about the TCLP.
"There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all."
This phrase leaves no doubt as to what the world’s leading scientists at the IPCC all agree on in their most recent report: the race is on to reverse or correct behaviors that have led the planet and its people to a tipping point.
CIF stands ready to meet these challenges, as it has since 2008. As our ambitions grow, our climate investments continue to demonstrate why transformational change frames our vision of the future, and anchors our delivery at a critical juncture in the fight against a climate catastrophe.