In 2025, floods and storms swept across the Lao People's Democratic Republic, affecting more than 305,000 people and causing over USD 114 million in damage. Behind these numbers are families who lost crops, homes, and sources of income, communities whose resilience is being tested again and again.

In a country where more than 70 per cent of people depend on agriculture, climate change is not a distant threat, it is a daily reality.   While adaptation has long been a priority and remains essential, recent disasters reveal a harder truth: for many, the limits of adaptation have already been reached.

This is what the global community recognizes as "Loss and Damage" under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: the human, economic, and environmental costs of climate change that exceed communities’ capacity to adapt. These losses go beyond damaged infrastructure, declining harvests, and business disruption. They include the loss of lives, cultural heritage, biodiversity, and sense of security. Yet for many countries, turning this concept into concrete action has remained a challenge.

In Lao PDR, that is beginning to change.

In 2025, UNDP and the Government of Lao PDR embarked on the country’s first-ever Loss and Damage assessment. Supported by the UNDP Climate Finance Network, funded by the UK’s FCDO CARA Programme, the initiative set out to answer a critical question: how can the country not only measure what has been lost, but also mobilize the resources needed to recover and rebuild?

What emerged was more than data. It was a shared understanding. For the first time, government institutions and development partners came together around a common evidence base, one that captures both the scale of climate impacts and the urgency of action. This process helped elevate Loss and Damage from a technical concept to a central pillar of national planning,  now being integrated into key frameworks and policy documents, including the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and the next generation of climate commitments under the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC3.0).

But perhaps most importantly, the assessment is opening doors.

Armed with credible data and a clear investment case, Lao PDR is now better positioned to access the newly operational Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, a global mechanism created to support countries on the frontlines of climate impact. What once seemed distant is now within reach: the ability to move from assessing losses to financing recovery.

This marks a profound shift, from responding to disasters after they strike, to planning ahead with the tools, partnerships, and a strategically financed approach to build resilience before the next shock arrives. 

For Lao PDR, it is a turning point.  It shows that with the right investments in data, systems, and collaboration, the country can transform climate adversity into an opportunity for stronger, more inclusive, and forward-looking development.  And it sends a powerful message: even in the face of growing climate risks, pathways to resilience are possible and are already being built. 

Authors: Raniya Sobir, Manas Moghe, Giulio Fabris, LongChing Lo, Yassmeen El-Hariri