[MCR2030-UNDRR-EIB-GCoM-WB] Getting to know the City Climate Finance Gap Fund

Time

10:00 Geneva/Cairo | 11:00 Nairobi | 15:00 Bangkok | 17:00 Incheon | 20:00 Suva

Duration: 1.5 hours

Language: English, with simultaneous interpretation in Arabic and Russian

Event Description

Launched in September 2020, the City Climate Finance Gap Fund (Gap Fund) aims to help cities in low and middle-income countries strategize, plan and prepare climate mitigation and adaptation projects. The Gap Fund helps cities at an early stage by offering free technical and advisory services to prioritize and prepare urban climate investments, improve quality and ensure projects are bankable.

This session of the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) webinar aims to provide in-depth information to help cities, local authorities, and their partners understand better what the Gap Fund is and how to access Gap Fund support.  It will include the information on the type of support provided (and not provided) by the Gap Fund, the eligibility criteria and relevant application process.  It will also highlight some examples of the types of successful projects and key components of what makes these applications successful.  Cities shall be equipped with necessary information should they be interested to apply for the Gap Fund support.   

Speakers

• Isabel Margarita Cantada, Urban Specialist, World Bank
• Asma Jhina, City Resilience and Climate Finance Advisor, GCoM
• Giulia Macagno, Senior Economist & Head of the City Climate Finance Gap Fund EIB Technical Secretariat

About the European Investment Bank (EIB)

The European Investment Bank is the lending arm of the European Union. It is the biggest multilateral financial institution in the world and one of the largest providers of climate finance. The EIB Group has recently adopted its Climate Bank Roadmap to support EUR 1 trillion of climate action and environmental sustainability investments in the decade to 2030. As part of the Roadmap, from the start of 2021, all new EIB Group operations will be aligned with the Paris Agreement.

About the World Bank

The World Bank Group (WBG) is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries that is committed to reducing poverty and building shared prosperity in developing countries. The WBG is also one of the largest multilateral providers of climate finance in developing countries. Just recently, the WBG announced its new Climate Change Action Plan for 2021-2025 that aims to deliver record levels of climate finance to developing countries, reduce emissions, strengthen adaptation, and align financial flows with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The new Action Plan builds on the WBG’s achievements under its first Climate Change Action Plan, which delivered over US$83 billion in climate finance over five years, including a record US$21.4 billion in 2020. The Plan also comes as countries seek sustainable pathways out of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM)

GCoM is the largest global alliance for city climate leadership, built upon the commitment of over 10,000 cities and local governments with a long-term vision of action to combat climate change and towards a resilient and low-emission society. GCoM cities hail from 6 continents and 140 countries. In total, they represent more than 900 million people. By 2030, Global Covenant cities and local governments could account for 2.3 billion tons CO2e of annual emissions reduction, matching yearly passenger road emissions from the U.S., China, France, Mexico, Russia, and Argentina combined.

About the City Climate Finance Gap Fund

The Gap Fund is an initiative of the governments of Germany and Luxembourg together with the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCOM), in partnership with several other key players in the climate finance arena (including C40, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance). It is implemented by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. The Gap Fund was announced at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 as a key initiative of LUCI, the Leadership for Urban Climate Investment, which promotes financing for ambitious urban climate action until 2025. Core donors to the Gap Fund are Germany (€45 million - including €25 million from the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and €20 million from the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and Luxembourg (€10 million).

About the UNDRR Global Education and Training Institute (UNDRR GETI):  

UNDRR GETI was established in 2010 to develop a new cadre of professionals in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to build disaster resilient societies.

GETI has a global mandate to provide capacity building support to mainstream disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into sustainable development; convene and support inter-city learning to strengthen resilience (Making Cities Resilient); and to provide capacity building and best practice sharing support to national training institutions working on resilience issues.

Based in Incheon, the Republic of Korea, UNDRR GETI is also the global secretariat of the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030).

About the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030):

Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) is a unique cross-stakeholder initiative for improving local resilience through advocacy, sharing knowledge and experiences, establishing mutually reinforcing city-to-city learning networks, injecting technical expertise, connecting multiple layers of government and building partnerships. 

Through delivering a clear 3-stage roadmap to urban resilience, providing tools, access to knowledge and monitoring and reporting tools, MCR2030 will support cities on their journey to reduce risk and build resilience. 

MCR2030 aims to ensure cities become inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030, contributing directly to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, and other global frameworks including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda. Visit mcr2030.undrr.org for more information.

For more information:

• MCR2030 Global Secretariat at [email protected]