Enabling access to the Green Climate Fund: Sharing country lessons from South Asia

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established to support developing countries to take ambitious action on climate change. The flow of climate finance from industrialised to developing countries, particularly via the GCF, is a crucial component of international agreements on climate change. However, capacity constraints and the complex procedures for accessing funding are affecting many developing countries’ ability to compete fairly and effectively for the GCF. This learning paper and brief provide insights from the Action on Climate Today (ACT) programme in South Asia to improve country ‘readiness’ to access climate finance.

This learning paper presents the ‘demand side’ country perspective on the existing challenges and some of the strategies that countries have employed to overcome them. It presents a framework for strengthening access to the GCF, looking at entry-points and strategies that governments, funders and practitioners can use.

The report structure begins by presenting the background to the GCF and its status in South Asia, followed by the framework used to understand four strategies for strengthening GCF access, which are explored in Sections 4–7. The final section provides a set of recommendations for the GCF and National Designated Authorities and Accredited Entities to improve future GCF access.