With the support of UNDP and COMIFAC, the Central African Republic (CAR) obtained two Readiness grants from the Green Climate Fund in 2016 and 2017 respectively. These were used to strengthen the capacities of the National Designated Authority (NDA), to put in place a strategy for mobilizing climate finance, and to develop project pipelines to be submitted to the GCF. CAR has developed a GCF Country Programme, in which some of the country’s most urgent Readiness needs have been identified. From this GCF Country Programme, and through consultation conducted by the NDA and the Global Water Partnership Organization’s (GWPO’s) local presence in CAR – the GWP Central African Republic Country Water Partnership (GWP CAR CWP) – with local stakeholders, a number of additional gaps and underlying barriers have been identified that inhibit CAR’s access to climate finance. The main Readiness gaps addressed by this proposed Readiness request are as follows (note that underlying barriers are described in Section 2):

• Limited capacity to track climate finance flows. The NDA is still lacking a climate finance tracking tool, which is required to adequately monitor and manage climate finance flows.
• Country-level stakeholders have limited knowledge of the GCF. Multiple CAR stakeholders that have a potential role to play in addressing the country’s urgent adaptation needs and mitigation opportunities – including potential executing entities, civil society organisations and the private sector –have limited knowledge, awareness and capacity for accessing the GCF.
• Priority project ideas are not being advanced into Concept Notes and full funding proposals for the GCF. CAR has not yet had a country-level Funding Proposal approved at the GCF. This Readiness request will fast- track CAR’s GCF pipeline advancement by developing and submitting two high-quality Concept Notes targeting the water sector from its GCF Country Programme.
• CAR’s priority project pipeline has not been adequately screened for gender-responsiveness and social inclusion. Lacking adequate screening at the earliest project design level, gender-responsiveness and social inclusion are likely to not be considered till later design stages of climate finance projects – a classic reason why projects fail to meaningfully create opportunities to advance gender equality and social inclusion.

This 2021 Readiness request proposes to close these gaps by developing a climate finance tracker to strengthen the NDA’s decision-making and operationalization; training stakeholders on GCF protocols, procedures, and financial structuring of GCF project proposals to strengthen their capacity to engage in CAR’s GCF programming, including by identifying future methods of engagement amongst these stakeholders – especially the private sector – to enhance inclusive climate finance programming; developing and submitting two project concept notes to the GCF through processes that strengthen project development capacity within CAR;  and by screening the CAR climate finance pipeline using a gender and social inclusion framework for CAR that will be developed based on the GCF policies on gender, environmental and social safeguards and indigenous peoples.

The primary beneficiaries of the proposed Readiness request will be the CAR NDA and major stakeholders in climate finance programming in CAR such as potential executing entities, civil society organisations and the private sector.