Introduction

Climate change will lead to impacts across a wide range of development outcomes with associated economic costs. These economic costs have direct implications for the economy but also include nonmarket impacts (social and environmental costs) that affect welfare and well-being.

Developing countries are projected to face disproportionately high economic costs from climate change and adaptation, with the most vulnerable groups experiencing the greatest relative impact. However, a major gap persists in understanding the distribution of these costs, particularly in terms of gender, equality, and social inclusion (GESI).

ECONOGENESIS will help fill this gap by updating previous studies on the economic impacts of climate change and costs of adaptation in Nepal, and extending them to consider the gender, equality, social, and distributional implications in economic terms. Given the crucial role of adaptation in mitigating climate impacts over the next 20 years, the research will explore how these costs vary across different social groups to support gender and climate justice. Whilst there are increasing climate finance flows for adaptation, the estimated cost of adaptation is much higher, and there is a large adaptation finance gap. To bridge this gap, there will be a need to scale up public, private, and blended adaptation finance, involving new actors, new models, and new financial instruments. The project will assess the barriers to finance and use the results of the economic analysis to help develop bankable adaptation finance projects.

Overall, ECONOGENESIS is a research project that covers:

• Assessment of the economics costs of climate change – including distributional pattern
• Analysis of costs and benefits of adaptation 
• Development of bankable adaptation projects

Study Area

Project Activities

CLARE Capacity Building and Exchange Events


Project Team

Dr. Divas B. Basnyat (Team Lead)   
Dr. Manjeshwori Singh (GESI Expert)
Dr. Shankar Shrestha (M&E Expert)
Ms. Shreya Bajimaya (Project Coordinator)
Mr. Girish R. Lamsal
Mr. Daya Shrestha
Mr. Pramit Ghimire
Ms. Sophiya Shrestha

Research Partners and Funding

Lead: Paul Watkiss Associates (PWA) - UK

Partners: Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) - Zanzibar, Vanguard Economics - Rwanda

Funding Agency: Climate Adaptation and Resilience Programme (CLARE) - Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), UK and  the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada