Welcome to your GCF B.40 video replay kit.
Thank you very much to each of our participants who participated in our recent debrief on the outcomes of the latest Green Climate Fund (GCF) 40th Meeting of the Board (B.40) in Songdo this past month. For those of you who were unable to attend, have a look below at what we covered in our debrief session. We dived straight into the outcomes and developments of this recent meeting, exploring approved projects, policy developments and processes, whilst analysing the results and issues unearthed from our 27th GCF insight report on ‘Capacity to access climate finance’.
GCF B.40 | The debrief
E Co. founder and GCF expert, Dr Grant Ballard-Tremeer travelled to Songdo, South Korea for the recent gathering of the GCF board. From first-hand discussions and observations, he unpacked the developments and issues from Songdo, focusing on the following in our recent webinar debrief:
- The GCF restructuring, unpacking the organogram of the GCF as it stands today – something whilst not on the formal B.40 agenda, remained a hot topic in the halls;
- Revision of the Accreditation framework – described previously as “broken, (needing) to be fixed.” And questions and concerns around multiple topics including: country ownership; Paris alignment; the divergent views on the mandate of the GCF;
- The approved policy for results-based payments for REDD+ building on the B.35 mandate, discussed by E Co. Senior consultant, and GCF / forestry expert, William Lynam;
- Highlights of B.40 funding proposals – including four projects our team had worked on; and unpacking the reception and analysis on the first Project-Specific Accredditation Approach (PSSA) project SAP045‘ Scaling up Climate Resilience Solutions for Burundian Smallholders’ by the One Acre Fund;
- Private sector projects at B.40 and the discussions over why board members appear deeply skeptical over multi-country private sector projects; fears from CSOs over private sector collaboration – the trust between the public and private sector to deliver – ‘can we trust the private sector?’ and ‘will the money flow to the local communities?’. Grant explores these critical issues and offers advice for private sector entities seeking to work with the GCF.
27th GCF insight | ‘Why are we bothering to discuss capacity?’
Our latest edition of GCF insight was based on a stakeholder survey and several interviews asking the GCF community to share their experiences with capacity-building for climate finance. We spotlighted what is working, what is not and shared solutions. In this webinar session, E Co. Consultant, Ellie La Trobe-Hogan dug into:
- Solutions to some of the biggest capacity building challenges, as identified by our report, including knowledge and information access, cost, and institutional capacity;
- The UNFCCC’s three layers of where capacity is needed in order to deliver impact (UNFCCC, 2024);
- The findings from our 27th GCF insight report and our own experiences on improving the capacity provisions from the GCF readiness programme;
- The two GCF modalities which NDAs can directly apply to in order to build capacity;
- Certain approaches E Co. takes in delivering capacity building to engage and inform particpants.
Watch the replay below our on our YouTube channel here.
And if you’d like to read our 27th GCF insight report for the full findings from our survey and interviews on ‘Capacity to access climate finance’, you can click on the image below or view it on our report page here:
About E Co.
E Co. is a leading climate finance and development consultancy headquartered in London, based globally. We provide consulting support to access climate finance from the GCF (and other funds and donors) across several service areas, including: market assessment, strategy formulation, policy development, monitoring and evaluation, fund support and training. However, we may be best known for our programme and project design services in response to the Fund’s criteria and processes.