The Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) has been engaged with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help the country develop and implement durable adaptation and mitigation actions to pursue climate resilient and low emission development pathways. The National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA) – GCF National Designed Authority (NDA) – is implementing an initial Readiness and Preparatory Support project (hereafter referred to as ‘Readiness I’) to strengthen the NDA’s capacity and coordination mechanisms, develop No Objection Procedures (NOP) and an initial GCF country programme.

To further strengthen the NDA’s capacity for strategic engagement with GCF, the NDA has requested FAO to develop this second Readiness proposal (hereafter referred to as ‘Readiness II’) to:

• Further strengthen NDA capacity, addressing the gaps identified in Readiness I;
• Increase stakeholder engagement, particularly at sub-national levels and of civil society and private sector;
• Strengthen capacity for gender considerations in GCF country programming and projects;
• Further develop the Country Programme;
• Develop system and capacity of NEPA for MRV of climate finance;
• Prepare for DAE accreditation; and
• Develop climate finance strategy including strategy for the private sector to access GCF and for unblocking private investments in climate actions.

The Readiness II implementation will draw on the NDA office and coordination mechanisms established under Readiness I while providing critical technical support a more strategic engagement with the GCF to boost climate finance in Afghanistan. It will coordinate with and benefit from complementary projects such as the recently approved Adaptation Fund (AF) grant through South-South cooperation to support NDA to establish national implementation entities for the AF and the GEF funded FAO project on Capacity building for Transparent Reporting (CBIT) in land and agriculture sectors that is being formulated.