Climate finance will not deliver justice if communities receive project funding but remain excluded from decisions, governance and the long-term institutional support needed to sustain change.

In more than three decades of community-development work, I have watched promising initiatives struggle in two different ways. Sometimes the money never arrived. Communities identified the problem, developed ideas and mobilised people, only to discover that no institution was prepared to invest in what they proposed.

The second failure was less visible. Funding arrived for workshops, equipment, pilot projects and short-term activities, but not for the people, organisations and relationships needed to sustain them. Local staff were employed until the grant ended. Skills were developed, then dispersed. Reporting systems served the funder but did little to strengthen the community organisation. When the project closed, communities were expected to continue with fewer resources than the outsiders who had briefly come to help.

The first failure leaves an obvious space. The second can be hidden behind attendance figures, completed activities and a final report describing the project as successful.

Money may reach a community without power ever changing hands.

That warning gives added weight to the argument advanced by Chelsea Huggett, Diana Gonzalez Botero, Doris Tulifau and Nalini Singh. Their research with Pacific activists and grassroots leaders found that women often hold essential knowledge about household water needs while remaining absent from the meetings where water and climate decisions are made.

Grassroots and feminist organisations reported little influence over governments, climate funds and the private sector. Money may pass through national governments or international........

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