I’ve Watched Villages Wait for Decades. This Is What Climate Finance Should Fix First.

I still remember the first time I saw electricity reach a village.
It was late in the 1990s, and I was a boy visiting my grandmother’s house in Cross River State, Nigeria. A single light bulb flickered to life in her room, a 12-watt miracle powered by a new government line. For weeks, people who hadn't connected lights to their homes came to her house to stare at the bulbs.

But this miracle was to be short-lived, because months later, the light stopped working. The transformer had failed, and nobody came to repair it. For years, the poles stood like a monument to broken promises.

That scene has replayed itself across the continent for decades. New projects, hopeful openings, and slow decay. The same cycle of waiting.

Today, billions in climate finance are pledged to fix this pattern, to bring light, water, and resilience to the people who need it most. Yet when I visit rural communities now, I see the same darkness, the same broken infrastructure, and the same waiting. Only the slogans have changed.

The Mirage of Climate Money

According to the World Bank, only 10–17 percent of global climate finance actually reaches the local level, the places where people live, farm, and rebuild after floods.

The Global Center on Adaptation’s Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) Hub reports something even more startling: just 0.17 percent of all reported climate funding qualifies as truly “locally led”, money that communities can control directly.

In other words, for every $1,000 promised to fight climate change, less than $2 is trusted to reach those living its effects.

The rest gets trapped in what I call the bureaucratic fog, a dense layer of intermediaries, procurement cycles, and “capacity-building” workshops that multiply reports but rarely deliver electricity.

The Villages That Time Forgot

In the Niger Delta, I once met a teacher who showed me the remains of a solar panel installed five years earlier by an international NGO. It had been meant to power the school’s computers. Today, the panel lies in the grass, cables chewed through, the battery stolen, and the roof leaking.

She told me, “Some Government officials came, took pictures, and said they would come back.”

That school, like countless others, might be a footnote in a donor report somewhere, as proof of “implementation,” a line item of progress that never really happened.

When climate finance travels only halfway, it does more than waste money. It also wastes trust and convinces people that help is temporary, and that promises fade with each funding cycle.

The Wrong End of the Pipeline

If you follow the money, the problem becomes painfully clear.
The Climate Policy Initiative’s “Landscape of Climate Finance in Africa 2024” shows that most funds flow through international institutions and private lenders, and not directly to African or local entities (CPI Africa Climate Finance).

• 64 per cent of total climate finance in Africa takes the form of debt, not grants.
• Only 39 percent goes to adaptation, though that is what Africans need most.
• And only 14 percent is channelled through African governments or institutions.

The pipeline is designed for control, and not connection.

The Irony of Consultation Without Control

Every year, I am invited to conferences where officials speak of “empowering communities.” There are PowerPoints, declarations, and photo sessions. But when the funding decisions are made, the communities are absent.

This is the irony: those most affected by drought, floods, and blackouts are still treated as beneficiaries, and not partners.

I have visited villages that have been waiting decades for power. They have drawn maps, proposed solutions, and offered labour. Yet, they cannot access even a small portion of the funds set aside for their “resilience.”

We call it climate finance. But to many villagers, it is still an abstraction, something they hear about on the radio, and not something that lights their homes.

Funds start with pledges made in New York or Brussels. They pass through development banks, consultants, and ministries. Each layer takes its cut, adds its audit, and extends its deadline. By the time the money reaches a local government or cooperative, it is barely enough to buy fuel for the project vehicle.

What Climate Finance Should Fix First

The truth is simple: Africa doesn’t need more pledges; it needs priorities.

If climate finance is to mean anything, it must fix the things that truly matter; the things that sustain life and dignity.

1. Reliable Power for Clinics
No mother should give birth in darkness. Yet, across Sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of clinics still depend on kerosene lamps or diesel generators. The first target of any climate fund should be electrifying every rural health facility. Reliable power is adaptation in its purest form, and it saves lives.

2. Clean Cooking for Women
Nearly 900 million Africans still cook with firewood or charcoal. The smoke kills more people each year than malaria or HIV/AIDS combined. Climate money should prioritise clean cooking technologies, not just as an environmental fix, but as a gender and health revolution.

3. Mini-Grids for Villages
Instead of waiting for the national grid that may never come, Africa can build its own future. Solar mini-grids can power schools, farms, and workshops at a fraction of the cost of diesel.

4. Local Decision-Making
Finally, climate finance must trust local leadership. A community that manages its own funds learns faster, adapts better, and builds stronger accountability. The money must not just arrive; it must belong.

The Power of Small Transformations

I recently travelled through a community in North-central Nigeria that had benefited from rural solar lighting in its clinic and school.

One could see the profound change. The midwife told me that deliveries had doubled because women no longer feared coming at night. Children now study after dark, and people charge their phones instead of travelling kilometres for power.

This is what transformation looks like in lived reality. It proves that when money and trust meet, even the smallest investment can multiply hope.

From Memory to Mandate

I’ve watched villages wait for decades. I’ve seen government convoys pass by without stopping, and donor projects arrive without staying. But I’ve also seen how quickly change can come when communities are trusted.

Africa’s climate finance reform must start there, with memory as a mandate.

We cannot build a just transition on paperwork. The next generation should not inherit reports about funding flows. They should inherit light, clean air, and functioning clinics.

If climate finance continues to bypass the people it was meant to serve, it will fail, no matter how well-intentioned or well-audited. The challenge is no longer just to raise funds; instead, it is to redirect faith from bureaucracy to humanity.

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“The poorest are not waiting for charity; they are waiting to be trusted with their own solutions.”