Monitoring the Social Costs of Climate Change for Low-and Middle-Income Countries

Download the Summary Report of the Virtual Policy Panel

Join researchers, experts, educators, and policymakers for a one-hour virtual policy panel discussion on Shortfalls in Social Spending Worldwide.

Policy panel to discuss the Social Costs of Climate Change in Low- and Middle-Income countries

This event, organized by UNICEF Innocenti, will provide an opportunity for leading experts on social spending to discuss a new report from UNICEF, ‘Monitoring the Social Spending Costs of Climate Change for Low-and Middle-Income Countries’ which argues that investing in social spending will be key to managing the climate crisis. Join live on the 17th of November 2022, at 15:00 CET.

The impact of climate change is creating major socio-economic challenges for low- and middle-income countries that were exacerbated by COVID-19. The social sectors, including healthcare, education and social protection servicesare facing rising climate-related costs, and adaptive, shock-responsive and risk-informed social policies are required to help manage the climate crisis. 

Positive opportunities to raise the required additional financing exist, and an urgent and concerted effort is needed to raise finance; this generation’s children, who bear the burden of climate change, cannot wait.

Panelists

 
• Mozaharul Alam joined the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2009 and serving as Regional Coordinator, Climate Change for Asia and the Pacific Office. He provides strategic and technical guidance to design and implementation climate change actions. Before joining UNEP, he worked for Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) and lead climate change programme. He also served the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of Bangladesh as a National Project Coordinator and successfully formulated National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) following an inclusive process. He participated climate change negotiations for more than two decades and coordinated adaptation group of G77 and China during 2007 to 2009. He also worked as Lead Author for Working Group II for IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. He received an international fellowship award in 2006 for three years by International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) under Climate Change Programme.

• Jonas Teusch works as an Economist at the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, specialising in carbon pricing, energy taxation, fossil fuel subsidies, and the assessment of green tax reforms. He is the lead author of several recent OECD reports and working papers, including “Pricing Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, “Carbon Pricing in Times of COVID-19”, ‘Taxing Energy Use for Sustainable Development”, and “Greening International Aviation Post-COVID-19”.  Jonas is a former researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies and holds a Ph.D. in Economics.

• Amal Ridene is an investor engagement officer at AfricInvest, a leading pan-African private equity firm, and a civil society activist with more than 8 years at local, national, and world levels. Her mission at AfricInvest includes supporting fundraising and due diligence missions as well as investor communications and events. She is also supporting AfricInvest’s work around climate action including setting the SBTis of the firm. Amal is also one of the « Tunisian Young Climate Change Negotiators » and a Party Delegate in COP26 and COP27, the UN’s Climate Change Conference. She is leading the sub-team of Climate Finance.

• Rajashree Padmanabhi  is an Analyst at Climate Policy Initiative’s London office where she focuses on tracking climate finance for the flagship series The Global Landscape of Climate Finance. Her recent adaptation-related work includes Landscape of Climate Finance in Africa, Landscape of Climate Finance in Ethiopia and deep-diving into innovative financial instruments for adaptation in Africa (GCA). 

• Dr L. Peter Ragno is a socio-economist, currently working as Chief of Social Policy at UNICEF Egypt. He is a social protection and social policy expert and has  worked and lived in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Previously he led the Social Protection Technical Assistance Unit -under the Social Policy section at UNICEF Ghana- and advised several International Organization (such as GiZ, UNDP, IOM) on poverty reduction and social protection. He has published peer review articles, book chapters and edited books on child wellbeing and social protection. He holds a PhD in Development Policy from the University of Manchester (UK). 
  

• Natalia Winder-Rossi is the Director of Social Policy and Social Protection at UNICEF Headquarters in New York since May 2020  where she leads UNICEF’s social policy programming at the global level and oversees the organization’s work on child poverty, social protection, public finance management for children and local governance.