GCF Structured Dialogue focus turns to Asia

The challenge of maintaining solid economic growth in Asia through climate resilient development will be a major feature of the Green Climate Fund's second Structured Dialogue in the region which opens tomorrow.

More than 160 participants from the region will take part in the four-day Dialogue in the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang.

Ministers and other high-level representatives gathered from across Asia will share their insights on national climate priorities. Dialogue participants include GCF National Designated Authorities (NDAs) and Focal Points, Accredited Entities, Readiness delivery partners, private sector representatives and civil society organisations.

The Da Nang event will seek to capitalise on growing regional ambition to tackle climate change evident during GCF's first Structured Dialogue with Asia held in Bali during April last year. The second Asia Dialogue will continue to explore opportunities to tap the dynamism of Asia's growing economy to finance climate action.

Underlying continuing strong regional growth, the Asian Development Bank forecasts in a report released this month that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Asia and the Pacific will reach 6 percent in 2018 and 5.9 percent in 2019. Excluding Asia's high-income newly industrialised economies, regional growth is expected to reach 6.5 percent in 2018 and 6.4 percent in 2019.

Many Dialogue participants will, however, be keenly aware that economic progress can be hampered by the effects of climate change if they are not addressed in investment decisions.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned last month how climate change in the Asia and Pacific region, the world's most disaster prone, is exacerbating threats to food production from the increasing prevalence of droughts and floods.

The Dialogue will provide guidance on how national governments can access GCF assistance to carry out adaptation planning under the Fund's readiness programme to make their countries more climate resilient. This will include an emphasis on developing country programmes that can be used as strategic guidance to identify climate investment opportunities which are aligned to national priorities.

GCF staff at the Dialogue will also provide updates on two recently introduced GCF policies recognising the special place of Indigenous Peoples and the safeguards that underpin all of the Fund's activities.

Structured Dialogues, which GCF holds regularly throughout the world, are designed to share experiences of climate action within different regions and to test how GCF support can enhance this.