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Green Climate Fund

Getting Bangladesh ready

Michael O'Neill
BANGLADESH is widely acknowledged as a country most vulnerable to risks arising from climate change. But, it is also acknowledged as a success case for building resilience to climate change.
However, the flow of climate finance to Bangladesh is far less than what the country requires to recover losses it has suffered from the impacts of climate change. This does not take into account money needed to maintain its economic momentum to help dislodge stubborn poverty, reduce inequality and develop sustainably.
It can be argued that much more international technical and financial assistance is needed to make a business case for Bangladesh to adopt a green development pathway, a policy aspiration refleaed in all major development strategies of Bangladesh, includingthe mid-term perspectiveplan.
Finally, most climate vulnerable countries including Bangladesh are inaeasingly concerned about the modality of accessing climate funds to ensure national ownership.
So how do we address such challenges?
In countries like Bangladesh, the answer may lie with the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Let me cite three reasons.
GCF promises significantly higher level of funds in comparison to most funds as developed countries have reiterated their commitment to mobilise up to $ 100 billion per year from public and private sources, by 2020. The fund provides opportunities to promote low emission green growth as part of the overall funding window. Finally, the governing Instrument of the GCF explicitly allows a modality to directly access the fund by government without any third party sup-port/mediation/ facilitation.
So how might climate vulnerable countries respond to this unprecedented opportunity?
It will take time, perhaps by 2020, but each country needs to develop required institutions, and sufficient capacity and knowledge to efficiently manage the potentially large amount of directly accessible funding. And they will need to address five immediate priorities.
Prepare a credible pipeline of projects that can be funded by GCF: For us, this is a rather tried and tested strategy. Given that GCF is a fund with a stated purpose and objective, it may not fund opportunistic proposals. Projea proposals need to be based on evidence of how each intervention is going to affect the global climate challenge and local climate impacts. While this sounds simple, in reality it calls for deep rooted institutional change. This is a reason why proposals from several countries, including Bangladesh, have been declined by GCF.
Set-up the appropriate authorities with relevant mandates and capacities to access the GCF: Bangladesh has taken the first step already - the country has already assigned the National Designated Authority (NDA) as the apex body to facilitate access to the fund. The NDA is required both for direaly and indirectly accessing the fund. Other institutions such as the National Implementation Entity (NIE) - that ensures fiduciary standards and develops, approves and monitors projects needs to be identified. These entities also need sufficient capacity to be able to manage fiduciary risks as well as maintain an internationally accepted level of transparency. Finally, there is a need to identify executing agencies under the fund that will deliver project results on the ground.
The NDA should facilitate an inclusive dialogue with all parts of the government and incorporate non-government stakeholders including civil society and private seaor: This needs a 'whole-of-government' approach that requires significant involvement of several ministries; ministry of planning and finance working with ministry of the environment, as well as with key line ministries such as agriculture, energy, health, local government, disaster management and transport. This task can be deceptively difficult. For example, ministries may differ in terms of their mandates and their role as NIE, there may be disagreements over priority selections, the private seaor might feel that it is being ignored. A broad, countrywide, transparent discussion is needed to build consensus on issues such as the selection criterion of projects, modality of sharinginformation, etc.
Improve the overall “Aid Management" capacity of the country: It is indeed commendable that Bangladesh launched the “Aid Information Management System" this week. It is expected to bring improvement in the country's overall development-effectiveness in a sustainable way. We have also worked with the ministry of finance to develop a robust Climate Fiscal Framework to improve the governance of climate finance in Bangladesh. At the same time, issues such as public financial management and public procurements systems need to be looked into too.
Countries like Bangladesh, among the worst hit by climate change but who also have the capacity to successfully negotiate on the world stage, should continue to work with the GCF mechanisms to keep pressure on the fund to further simplify the processes without compromising quality. Bangladesh also needs to work with the GCF secretariat to expedite the release of capacity development funds, which it can access to improve national capacities.
So how can the UNDP help?
As one of the most trusted capacity development agency, we are ready, able and keen to work with designated entities including NDA, NIEs, etc., orif needed even possibly work as an interim NIE.
We are currently working with Bangladesh to develop a National Adaptation Plan (NAP). We can also support development of a Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Aaion (NAMA) that is critical to access the mitigation portion of the fund. Additional support can be explored in implementing pilots around those actions.
Finally, given UNDP's long term partnership with key government stakeholders such as the ministry of finance, the Planning Commission, the ministry of environment, and close association with civil society and private sector, we can facilitate the proposed 'whole of government' approach to support building consensus among major stakeholders.
Bangladesh, like a Royal Bengal Tiger, is ready to jump over the obstacles posed by the impacts of climate change. Having the right capacity, institutions, and strategy for accessing GCF are going to add needed energy in that jump. Given my faith in Bangladesh's capacity and on our on-going partnership, let me congratulate Bangladesh in anticipation for successfully benefiting from the GCF.The writer is Assistant Secretary General and Director at the Bureau of External Relations
and Advocacy, UNDP.