Access to climate finance is a prominent feature of the debate for the upcoming COP29 decision to set a New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance. Countries, communities and groups representing marginalised collectives who are most impacted by the climate crisis are in urgent need of scaled-up, accessible and adequate climate finance. Findings from participatory research conducted with more than 100 organisations in the Sahel show that there are still numerous challenges to address in terms of how climate finance mechanisms are designed, how capacities need to be supported, how decision-making spaces affecting climate finance need to be more inclusive, and how gender, intersectional and geographical fragility factors shape unequal access to climate finance.  In order to effectively bridge the climate finance access gap, rich countries need to make an urgent commitment to undertake concrete and bold actions to address climate finance access barriers for local actors in climate-vulnerable contexts.