In April 2021 Government of Montenegro (GoM) has adopted National programme of priority activities in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the framework of cooperation with the Green Climate Fund 2021–2023 (Country Programme document). Through this support Montenegro has established a national framework for cooperation with the GCF in all relevant aspects. Some of the key results achieved through this process are: (i) positioning of the GCF coordination mechanism in the Government’s organizational hierarchy; (ii) introduction of the GCF governing rules and procedures to be observed in all matters relevant to GCF (including no objection procedure); (iii) providing national assessment for mid-term climate finance and support needs through development of the pipeline of priority climate adaptation and mitigation projects. However, the Country Program (CP) has not been cleared by the Climate Investment Committee of the GCF. Also, the updated NDC 2 has been endorsed by the Government on 3rd of June 2021, and it is currently in the submission process to the UNFCCC. In conjunction with these circumstances, there is a need to finalise the development of the CP and ensure better alignment of the pipeline with the newly updated NDCs.

In addition, due to reorganization in the competent authority i.e. Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism (former Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism) a new GCF NDA was designated in April 2021. While initial capacities of the former NDA were enhanced within the first readiness support project, no knowledge management systems were established, which created a challenge for the new NDA in terms of accessing training resources and information to support the implementation of its core function and the engagement with the GCF. In addition, the members of the recently established GCF coordination mechanism (to be led by the NDA) do not have sufficient knowledge and capacities for the engagement with the GCF .

In 2018, the GoM created the Environment Protection Fund (EkoFund) as a central institution with a mandate for financing and providing technical support for projects / programs in the field of the environment, climate change and energy. As a recently established institution, EkoFund lacks knowledge and vision on how climate finance issues could be conceptualised within its operations. EkoFund requires technical assistance to support formulation and implementation of its climate finance and investment strategy in order to improve access to various sources of climate finance and to provide better support for implementation of the NDC 2.

These recent developments in the country’s climate change governance and policy landscape have prompted the Government of Montenegro to seek additional support from the GCF. With objective to address above listed needs of the country, Montenegro has prepared a Readiness proposal which will focus on the following objectives:

(1)  Institutional capacities of the NDA and the coordination mechanism (CM) strengthened, and capacities for climate finance programming and the engagement with the GCF created;

(2)  Supporting investment planning for the NDC 2;

(3)  Enhancing Montenegro’s CP for the engagement with the GCF in line with NDC 2; and

(4)  Supporting the development and implementation of NDC 2 through capacity building of the Ek-Fund