Financing Compendium

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The PMNCH Working Group for Women's, Children's, and Adolescents' Health (WCAH) in Climate Change and Humanitarian Contexts was established in 2026. The group provides strategic guidance and coordination to strengthen PMNCH’s advocacy, policy influence, and partner mobilization. Its mission is to ensure that WCAH is systematically prioritized and protected across conflict, humanitarian crises, and climate preparedness, response, and recovery.

To support evidence-informed policy, advocacy, and financing decisions, the working group has developed this consolidated Compendium of Resources on Financing WCAH in Climate Change and Humanitarian Contexts. This live repository draws from a diverse range of global sources, constituencies, and expert data.

Categories

Reports
Briefs
Capacity Strengthening Resources
Scientific Articles
Advocacy Resources
Case Studies
Community Voices

1. Reports

ODA projections for 2026 and the near-term

This OECD policy brief projects a third consecutive annual decline in global Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2026, bringing aid to its lowest level since 2014 and severely reducing funding for health, humanitarian crises, and the poorest nations.

A historic decline in foreign aid: Preliminary 2025 ODA

This OECD report outlines a record 23.1% contraction in foreign aid during 2025, driven largely by steep spending cuts from major bilateral donors, returning global ODA volumes to levels last seen at the start of the Sustainable Development Goals era.

Guiding principles financing climate & health solutions

Endorsed by international partners and philanthropic institutions, this document establishes a set of guiding principles to mobilize, streamline, and equitably distribute climate finance to build climate-resilient health systems and protect vulnerable communities.

Financial inclusion across the humanitarian, development & peace nexus

This working paper details how incorporating financial inclusion strategies, such as savings mechanisms, micro-insurance, and linked cash transfers, strengthens household and community resilience against compound economic, climate, and conflict shocks.

Framework for health in the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in Africa (2025)

Published by the WHO, this document offers practical guidance for African member states and international partners to harmonize, prioritize, and sustain health service delivery in fragile, conflict-affected, and emergency settings.

Financing the Nexus - Gaps and opportunities

Issued by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), this study draws on field research across crisis-affected countries to assess funding flows and propose strategies for delivering flexible, multi-year financing across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding sectors.

Financing gender equality in fragile contexts

This report reviews global trends, funding allocations, and persistent gaps in foreign aid dedicated to gender equality and women's empowerment in fragile and conflict-affected environments.

Africa’s Health Financing in a New Era – April 2025

This report presents a strategic roadmap to overcome a critical health funding crisis by scaling up DRM, leveraging blended finance, and introducing innovative funding mechanisms to reduce external aid reliance.

2. Briefs

Comprehensive, Sustainable and Needs-Based Health Financing: Women’s & Children’s Health in Conflict Settings

This report examines the severe health financing gaps affecting vulnerable women and children in conflict zones and provides actionable recommendations to establish sustainable, equitable, and needs-based funding mechanisms in humanitarian settings.

Financing intersectoral action for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health (WCAH) and well-being, with a focus on climate change

This study explores strategies for mobilizing cross-sectoral financing to address the intersecting impacts of climate change on the health, safety, and well-being of women, children, and adolescents.

The benefits and importance of locally led anticipatory action

This brief outlines the critical role of locally led anticipatory action in modern disaster risk management, demonstrating how shifting decision-making power, resources, and early warning systems to local actors enables faster, more dignified, and cost-effective responses before climate shocks strike.

Investing in the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents

This brief lays out the economic and social case for prioritized investments in women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health, highlighting how sustained funding yields long-term benefits across global development, equity, and resilience.

Prioritizing women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in the climate crisis

This paper highlights the disproportionate risks climate change poses to women, children, and adolescents, advocating for targeted investments and policy integration to protect these groups from climate-driven health threats.

3. Capacity Strengthening Resources

WHO training module: Enhanced health decision-making using climate information

A foundational course on using climate information for public health surveillance, early warning, and adaptation planning.

Climate action for health: a policy guide for co-benefits in the Western Pacific Region

This evidence-based policy guide highlights how well-designed climate actions across key sectors, including transport, energy, food systems, urban development and water, can deliver substantial and immediate health co-benefits, from cleaner air and improved nutrition to more resilient communities.

Humanitarian cash transfers explained

UNICEF’s explainer highlighting humanitarian cash transfers, what they are, how they work, and why they empower women, vulnerable populations and households in humanitarian crises.

4. Scientific Articles

Harnessing evidence-based solutions for climate resilience and women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health I BMJ GH

This paper highlights proven, scalable health interventions that simultaneously build community climate resilience while safeguarding the specific health and nutritional needs of women, children, and adolescents.

Opportunities and challenges for financing women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in the context of climate change | BMJ GH

This analysis identifies structural funding barriers and high-potential entry points for unlocking global climate finance to protect and advance women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health outcomes in climate-vulnerable regions.

Guidance on sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health in humanitarian and fragile settings: a scoping review I BMJ GH

I BMJ Global Health I This scoping review synthesizes existing operational guidance to map critical interventions, implementation gaps, and best practices for delivering sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services in conflict and emergency settings.

Climate finance opportunities for health and health systems I Bulletin of The World Health Organization

This policy overview details actionable pathways for health sector leaders to access multilateral climate funds, arguing that health system decarbonization and adaptation are underutilized vehicles for climate investment.

Climate and health: a path to strategic co-financing? | Health Policy and Planning | Oxford Academic

This article investigates how health and climate actors can align financial mechanisms, presenting strategic co-financing frameworks to bridge funding divides between climate adaptation initiatives and public health system strengthening.

5. Advocacy resources and tools

The Resilience Fund for Climate and Women's Health

This collaborative initiative mobilizes funding, research, and donor partnerships to scale up climate-resilient sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) interventions for women in vulnerable communities.

Climate Justice Resilience Fund

This participatory grant-making body directly funds community-led solutions created by women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples to address climate risks and drive structural systems change.

ICPF Resource Guide, open-access resources at the intersection of climate and SRH

This curated collection of open-access tools, briefs, and research equips advocates and policymakers to integrate sexual and reproductive health into climate action and policy frameworks.

Launch of Climate Change Module in Safe Delivery App I Maternity Foundation

Maternity Foundation, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), and Direct Relief are introducing a forthcoming Climate-Wise Care module in the Safe Delivery App to equip midwives with offline, evidence-based, locally adapted guidance to maintain essential maternal and newborn care amid climate-related emergencies, including extreme heat and floods, in fragile settings.

6. Case Studies

A woman washing her hands in Somalia

In 2024, the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund effectively countered financing volatility by pooling contributions from 15 donors into five allocations totalling US$62.7 million. This coordinated, multisectoral assistance successfully delivered critical health, nutrition, and WASH services to approximately 4.4 million crisis-affected people, including 2.4 million women and girls.

In Kenya, the Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) programme provided regular cash transfers linked to health visits and school attendance for vulnerable children following droughts and climate shocks, and was associated with enhanced utilisation of health services, alongside a measurable reduction in child labour.

Women and children walk in the streets of drought-affected Garowe, Somalia

In Somalia, the multi-year humanitarian financing provided through the Building Resilient Communities in Somalia (BRCiS) programme successfully strengthened preparedness and local response capacity. This shifted the approach away from short-term, reactive funding models, enabling faster responses to recurrent droughts and ensuring the continuous delivery of essential health services.

Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal

The Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program provides a multi-donor mechanism that integrates social protection, climate adaptation, and nutrition financing across six conflict- and drought-affected countries. This initiative delivers shock-responsive cash transfers that are frequently paired with targeted measures to support maternal and child nutrition, health, and early childhood development.

Series of women and children sitting in dirt with big buckets in a refugee camp in North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Domcratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) framework utilizes real-time surveillance to automatically release contingency financing once a pre-agreed cholera case threshold is reached. Activations in 2023 and 2025 successfully mitigated service disruptions by delivering safe water, case detection, and treatment ahead of full-scale outbreaks in conflict-affected provinces, where children made up nearly 80% of cases.

Ukraine children

Despite facing over 2,400 attacks on its health system since 2022, Ukraine maintained a remarkably low MMR of 15 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023. This resilience was heavily driven by robust financing from the State budget and external donors, which enabled the National Health Service of Ukraine to continue contracting health facilities for maternal services at pre-invasion rates. These sustained funds supported the renovation of facilities to include air-attack shelters and initiatives for advanced neonatal screenings and infection control.

7. Community Voices

Two young boys walking in fields in Tanzania

“Women are in fear day and night”: Untold numbers suffer conflict-related sexual violence as crisis grips South Sudan

In South Sudan, ongoing conflict, extreme climate shocks (floods and droughts), and a collapsed healthcare infrastructure have intersected to create a severe humanitarian crisis that disproportionately impacts women and girls. Escaping extreme violence, families are forced to trek long distances across unsafe terrains and climate-ravaged areas, exposing women to heightened risks of conflict-related sexual violence, assault, and severe trauma. Disruption and looting of essential health facilities have left millions without vital protection, dignity kits, or emergency medical services. Consequently, pregnant women face severe health risks—including miscarriages, bleeding, and maternal mortality—due to the lack of skilled birth attendants, prenatal care, and reproductive health resources.

Internally displaced children sheltering in Rafah, Gaza strip

Over half a million highly vulnerable people in the Gaza Strip receive humanitarian cash assistance

The escalating conflict in Gaza has driven a severe humanitarian crisis, leaving 1.7 million displaced people, particularly women and children, facing acute malnutrition, lack of healthcare, and extreme hardship. To address these urgent needs, UNICEF’s emergency cash assistance programme provides vulnerable families with monthly funds ($200 per family, with additional top-ups for pregnant/breastfeeding women and children with disabilities) to purchase essential medicines, food, and winter clothing from local informal markets. Utilizing digital ecosystem innovations like HOPE and RapidPro, UNICEF has delivered flexible aid to over 285,000 children, while simultaneously gathering vital nutritional data that reveals worsening malnutrition across Gaza, most critically in Northern Gaza and Rafah.