This proposal aims to strengthen the National Designated Authority (NDA) coordination mechanism through the implementation of the Non objection procedure and the update of country programme. It will again support the renewal of the accreditation of the Ministry of Environment to sustain its capacity to support the mobilization of GCF financing. This will ensure that the readiness outputs and outcomes benefit a wide range of stakeholders and increase national awareness in GCF and other climate finance opportunities, which will lead to an effective and inclusive implementation of key national policies and strategies, including the National Strategy for Transformation, the Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy as well as the National Determined Contributions.

Indeed, the grant will also support the updating of the existing Country’s Programme and Strategic Framework for National Engagement with the Fund, by building on latest environment and climate change policies, strategies and plans about the priorities and latest guidelines of the Fund. This proposal will also conduct a country’s readiness needs assessment to inform effective climate resources mobilization and allocation. And most importantly, the readiness need assessment should be the basis for the development of the multiple years readiness program to be submitted next year.

• Inadequate institutional capacity of the NDA and National Coordination Team (NCT) to coordinate climate change stakeholder interventions;
• The following are the main challenges and gaps this project is aiming to address:
• Limited awareness and capacity of different stakeholders to discharge their roles effectively;
• Pending expiration of GCF accreditation of the Ministry of Environment (MoE);
• Limited participation of the private sector in climate finance;
• Country programme was developed in 2016 and there have been many developments both at national and GCF levels (development of country programme guidelines) that are yet to be considered in the country programme;

This readiness request will provide, through a comprehensive readiness needs assessment, clear actions to address NDA’s institutional and coordination capacity gaps and ensure that programmes/projects proposals to GCF increasingly meet the required standards and contribute to the integration of national climate change priorities into key economic sectors as well as promote climate resilient national development.

The primary beneficiaries of this readiness are the NDA, NCT, MoE, key governmental organizations, private sector, international NGOs (including GCF accredited ones) and local Civil Society organizations. The grants’ activities planned start date is January 2021 and the planned end date is June 2022 (18 months). The estimated budget for this readiness proposal is US$ 297,677.00.