GCF Readiness Programme marks milestone, hitting USD 10m in funds disbursed to 59 countries

More than USD 10 million to date has been disbursed through the Green Climate Fund’s Readiness Programme, a flagship funding programme that provides resources to enhance country ownership and access to the Fund.

The GCF Readiness Programme portfolio currently consists of 119 approved proposals for capacity building activities in some 88 developing countries valued over USD 39 million. Of this amount, USD 10 million has been disbursed to 72 different Readiness initiatives in 59 developing countries, including 44 small island developing states, least developed countries and African countries — societies particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Through the Readiness Programme, GCF provides resources for strengthening the institutional capacities of National Designated Authorities (NDAs) or focal points and Direct Access Entities to effectively engage with the Fund. It also assists countries in undertaking adaptation planning and developing programming frameworks to build out their long-term climate action agendas with GCF.

The Fund’s governing body has released, to date, USD 80 million in initial resources for Readiness activities, which GCF can provide to recipients in the form of grants or technical assistance.

Countries have partnered with several national, regional and international organizations to serve as their ‘delivery partners’ to access the GCF’s Readiness resources. These organizations work directly with countries to support or execute the activities approved under a Readiness grant, providing services such as development of readiness request proposals; implementation and supervision; fiduciary management; progress reporting; and project completion and evaluation.

“The GCF Board set 2017 as a year of implementation for the Fund, and making Readiness resources available to countries is a priority for the Secretariat,” said GCF Executive Director Howard Bamsey. “With well over USD 10 million now disbursed, we are beginning to see the impact of the programme as countries start to report on how Readiness resources received are helping to structure and plan their engagement with GCF.”

With a significant number of activities under implementation, the GCF Secretariat is working to capture early Readiness results countries are sharing. This includes the development of country programmes in Antigua and Barbuda and the Federated States of Micronesia, a stakeholder communication strategy in Guyana, and a climate-information services (CIS) scoping exercise in Vanuatu, which was used to inform the design of a USD 26.6 million CIS project that the GCF Board approved for Vanuatu in December 2016.

Readiness resources are also being used by organizations interested in becoming accredited to the Fund through its direct access modality. With the support of the Readiness Programme, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the Micronesia Conservation Trust were accredited to the GCF at the fifteenth meeting and seventeenth meeting of the GCF Board, respectively. Technical assistance provided to the organizations helped identify areas where improvements were needed to meet the Fund’s accreditation requirements, and to formulate actions plans to address them.

For more information on the GCF Readiness Programme, consult the online guide ‘GCF 101’, which includes a section providing answers to frequently asked questions.