i) Climate background and institutional and policy context:
Eswatini has a significant and immediate need for investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The amount of climate finance received and disbursed, to date, covers only a small portion of the actual need, The costs of implementing the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions is conditional on receiving adequate means for implementation, including finance in addition to technology development and transfer and capacity building. The financial needs of the country as highlighted in the revised NDC (2021) ranges from USD 950 million to USD 1.5 billion required for the various national and sectoral strategies and action plans achieve net zero emission pathways.

ii) Problem statement:
The Government of Eswatini has identified GCF Country Priority investment areas in alignment with the 8 GCF result areas. The country still lacks channels to access GCF resources for the projects in the country’s priority investment areas as there is no DAEs in the country as of now. Two public nominated candidate DAEs which are Eswatini Bank (EB) and Eswatini Environment Authority (EEA) have limited capacity and policy framework to fulfill GCF requirements.

iii) Goal and objectives
The main objective of this readiness is to strengthen national capacities to access climate finance in Eswatini through supporting two national institutions to be accredited to GCF contribute to national climate action, develop a prefeasibility study that would be used by the two institutions and enhance knowledge and awareness of stakeholders on GCF and climate change.

iv) Direct and indirect beneficiaries
Given this context, this readiness project will strengthen institutional capacities for nominated entities; Eswatini Bank (EB) and Eswatini Environment Authority (EEA), support implementation of entities work programmes that are aligned to the GCF country programme and support the establishment of collaborative agreements with national private companies and regional accredited entities for enhanced resources mobilization capacities. The main beneficiaries of this project are Eswatini Environment Authority, Eswatini Bank and Ministry of Tourism and Environment and Ministry of Finance. With reference to mainstreaming gender equality, the project will support an equal active participation of women and men in all project activities.