The Vanuatu Vulnerability Assessment Framework: A Guide for Sustainable and Transparent Climate Resilience Investment Decisions

The Vanuatu National Vulnerability Assessment Framework (NVAF) was developed to enable the channeling of finance to people who live in places that are most vulnerable to climate change and disasters. The NVAF is designed to facilitate a more systematic and robust collation and analysis of existing and forthcoming climate and disaster vulnerability data from multiple sources (stakeholders) and methods (qualitative, quantitative, subjective, objective) to more effectively inform resilience decision-making, planning, project prioritization and financial allocation at national and sub-national levels. Aligned with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) investment criteria aims to facilitate a paradigm shift towards climate-resilient sustainable development by providing a common climate vulnerability assessment framework across sectors and governance levels for: identifying people and places that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and in what way; institutionalizing a gender-sensitive and socially inclusive approach to resilient development; and adaptively managing climate and disaster resilient interventions in accordance with evolving national sustainable development priorities. The effective access to and use of existing and future climate and disaster vulnerability data to address key knowledge gaps in a resilience investment decision-making context is central to the NVAF and its application.