After more than thirty years of discussions, the Seventh Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) concluded with important decisions for its implementation. This fund complements a global framework on these issues, comprised of three pillars: (a) the political pillar, represented by the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage; (b) the technical pillar, represented by the Santiago Network; and (c) the financial pillar, now represented by the FRLD.

While the Board members may welcome these results, many challenges remain in preventing, addressing, and minimizing loss and damage (L&D). These challenges include conceptual and methodological issues regarding how to measure, analyze, and project these effects and impacts, as well as the establishment and articulation of policies for effective governance of this cross-cutting thematic area.

Between 2023 and 2025, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided technical assistance to the governments of El Salvador, Belize, and Mozambique. This collaboration included adapting the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) methodology to measure and analyze L&D from a resilient development perspective.

The approach focused on building long-term resiliencethrough the use of climate models and development scenarios as analytical tools. Furthermore, the support aimed to strengthen related governance mechanisms and instruments.

Based on these recent examples, this paper proposes establishing avenues for reflection and solutions to address governance challenges and formulate public policies based on sound evidence. These proposals will also be fundamental in selecting beneficiary countries and ensuring the optimal use of available funds.

The emphasis should be on priority populations and critical development sectors, which, at present, are still very limited compared to the magnitude of the needs.

So far, the FRLD has received pledges from contributing countries of around US$768 million, a figure far below some estimates of the impact of climate change on development, which reach US$143 billion annually.