Overview
GCF funds climate action. This section provides information and resources guiding you through the process of applying for funding. It is designed to help developing countries and Accredited Entities design climate project proposals for GCF funding, as well as to describe how GCF reviews, approves, and implements climate projects.
The section includes pages describing our full project cycle, explaining our investment framework which guides investment decisions, and explaining how to develop an early stage ‘Concept Note’ and a full ‘Funding Proposal’.
Note to the public
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Efficient GCF
Under our 50 by 30 vision GCF aims to speed up, scale up, and optimize every dollar we invest, so that we can efficiently and impactfully manage a capitalization of USD 50 billion by 2030.
As part of this, and in line with the priorities of our 2024-2027 strategic plan, GCF is committed to significantly improving access to GCF resources. We have launched the ‘Efficient GCF’ initiative to streamline our processes and improve our efficiency.
We have listened to feedback from our partners and recognise that there are opportunities for improvement. In particular, we heard comments that the review process has been too long, with a lack of clarity on requirements for partners, and that the process has not been effective in filtering out proposals that have a low probability of climate impact.
In response, we have re-examined our internal project screening and review processes, so that we transform how countries do business with us, cutting delivery times, being more responsive, and – crucially – ensuring that the projects that move through our pipeline are closely aligned with country climate objectives and have strong country ownership.
We have already established the ‘1 Project = 1 Point of Coordination = 1 Voice’ system within the Secretariat to drive collaboration, streamline internal processes and ensure consistent messages to countries and partners.
We are now committing to complete our reviews of Concept Notes and Funding Proposals in nine months or less. This will include the time taken to review the Concept Note and the time to appraise the Funding Proposal so it is ready for Board consideration. It does not include the time taken by project partners to develop the full proposal between those two stages.
Note
We have removed some outdated guidance materials from the website as we move to simplify and streamline our processes. The sectoral guides, the GCF Programming Manual, the Appraisal Guidance and some of its annexes, as well as the Concept Note user guide and checklist have been removed from circulation. Updated guidance on Concept Notes and Funding Proposals is currently under development and will be provided when complete.