Nine municipalities in Nepal have been selected for a global youth climate fund that will provide $50,000 to each local government. But the municipalities are at different stages of planning how to use the money, with some still waiting for the funds and a climate policy expert warning that the grants should not become another round of generic plantation or awareness programs.

The municipalities selected under the 2026 expansion of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Youth Climate Action Fund are Bedkot, Belauri, Biratnagar, Garuda, Ilam, Kageshwori Manohara, Lahan, Parshuram and Tulsipur.

The fund is intended to support climate and environmental projects led by young people aged 15 to 24. Each municipality receives $50,000, which can be distributed as microgrants of between $1,000 and $5,000 to eligible youth-led projects. Up to $10,000 can be used for administrative costs.

In Bedkot Municipality, Mayor Bhoj Raj Bohara said the local government has already identified seven or eight activities, with each planned to receive about $5,000. “We have created seven or eight activities to carry out youth and climate activities,” Bohara said.

The proposed activities range from environmental promotion and biological embankments to a ‘Nakshatra Vatika’, a space intended to familiarise young people with different plant species and environmental issues. The municipality also plans to mobilise a natural underground water spring at Bhankeshwar. Bohara said the focus would be particularly on school and college students, providing them with information about the environment and opportunities to participate in climate-related activities.

But Bedkot has not yet received the money. “We are currently just in the initial phase,” Bohara said, adding that the municipality has signed an agreement with an NGO called NEEDS, which works on climate and climate action. The funds will come through the organisation rather than directly into the municipality.

According to Bohara, the arrangement was made because receiving the money directly through the municipal system could have created administrative complications. Bedkot’s proposed activities reflect the flexibility built into the fund, which allows municipalities to support projects ranging from climate education and environmental campaigns to green infrastructure, resilience, waste management and youth-led governance initiatives.

But climate policy expert Abhishek Shrestha says municipalities should begin with a different question: what climate problems are actually affecting their communities? “First of all, the main thing is what are the climate-related problems or disasters of the local municipalities? Have they made a plan on how they should respond to those? If not, they should work on that first,” Shrestha said.

Projects would be more effective if they were developed around existing local climate risks and municipal plans, rather than being designed simply because funding has become available, he said.

The differences between the nine municipalities are significant, Shrestha said, and climate action should reflect those differences. “In the case of Ilam, maybe landslides could be a major problem,” he said. He also pointed to Ilam’s dependence on agricultural cash crops, saying climate-related stresses affecting agriculture could provide an entry point for youth engagement and entrepreneurship.

Biratnagar faces a different set of risks, he said. “Currently there are many problems with heat stress, followed by cold waves and heat waves,” Shrestha said. He also identified inundation as a major concern for Biratnagar, with potential consequences for agriculture. Heat waves and urban heat islands could likewise provide the basis for adaptation projects. “For that, it should be context-specific,” he said.

The same principle could apply to Lahan in Madhesh, where flooding and other climate stresses could shape the projects selected under the fund. Shrestha said municipalities should examine their historical climate stresses, understand how those risks have been addressed institutionally and then determine how young people can contribute.

That does not mean awareness programs should be excluded. But Shrestha cautioned against treating familiar environmental activities as climate solutions without connecting them to specific local problems. “Definitely, a level of capacity building and awareness for these issues needs to be done,” he said. “But not just ‘as usual,’ like saying ‘plantation.’ Plantation programs can come under many environmental programs.”

In some municipalities, he said, the priority could instead be water sources or other physical interventions needed to address specific climate risks. “Such hardware projects should be made,” Shrestha said, stressing that the starting point should be the municipality's understanding of its climate risks and whether it has a plan or documentation to address them.

The fund is significant not only because of the money involved but also because of the opportunity it provides to local governments to access resources for climate action. “Even if many resources come, they arrive at the federal government level,” Shrestha said, noting that local governments often have limited technical capacity to access and manage climate resources. “However, the way this money is coming is a good opportunity,” he said.

Climate change affects all 753 local levels to varying degrees, he said, making locally specific climate planning increasingly important. The program’s stated purpose is to give young people the resources, guidance and platform to design and implement solutions to climate and environmental problems at the local level. The program’s earlier participating cities have supported activities including green spaces, composting stations, tree planting, community gardens and waste collection.

For Nepal, however, Shrestha argues that the bigger opportunity lies in using the grants to establish a model for locally led climate action. The municipalities could also learn from one another, he said. “If there were a platform for cross-learning among them, perhaps everyone wouldn’t have the same level of understanding,” Shrestha said.

The municipalities may differ in their understanding of how the resources can be accessed and mobilised, while their technical capacity is also likely to vary. “They can move forward by creating such a structure,” he said.

A cross-learning mechanism could allow municipalities to share successful approaches, technical knowledge and ways of involving young people. A successful project in one municipality could then potentially be adapted elsewhere.

The nine selected municipalities are not moving at the same pace.

Parshuram Municipality Mayor Bharat Badayar Joshi said his municipality had opened a call for proposals targeting youth clubs, schools and colleges, initially envisaging eight groups receiving $5,000 each. The municipality is considering climate, waste management, disaster preparedness, renewable energy and green-cover projects, but plans to extend the call after the first round failed to produce proposals considered strong enough.

Lahan Municipality Mayor Mahesh Chaudhary has linked the program to the municipality’s previous work on ponds and fruit-tree plantations. He said around 10,000 saplings had been planted and that the municipality wanted to involve young people in planting and protecting trees and conducting awareness activities, while also creating employment opportunities.

In Garuda Municipality, Mayor Kanthamani Jaisawal said he needed to check municipal records before providing details about the fund. Meanwhile, Tulsipur Municipality Mayor Tikaram Khadka said the money had not reached the municipality and that he had no information about it so far.

The mayors of Belauri, Biratnagar, Ilam and Kageshwori Manohara did not respond to multiple calls seeking information about their plans for the fund.

The program also provides participating cities with coaching, training and templates for project selection, communication, co-design and project support.

For Shrestha, Nepal should use that support to build more than individual projects. “If they do even better work, then more such resources can be brought in,” he said. He believes successful projects could help municipalities attract additional matching funds from organisations seeking to work on climate issues at the local level. “In that sense, if they do good work, they can bring in other matching funds in the coming days, because climate doesn't fall under the priorities of many local levels,” he said.

The grants could therefore become a starting point rather than an endpoint. The immediate challenge, however, is to ensure that the money does not simply reproduce familiar environmental activities under a new funding label.

If local governments can use the money to identify their specific climate risks, build youth capacity and demonstrate workable local solutions, the program could provide a model for attracting and managing additional climate finance at the municipal level.