Accessing Green Climate Fund

MATTHEW DLAMINITHE Green Climate Fund is the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the end of 2011.

It was created to change the world’s approach to implementation of climate mitigation development projects.

This was said by Ousseynou Nakoulima, the director of country programming for the GCF in a presentation in Windhoek on Tuesday.

Nakoulima is in charge of programming country strategies and partnerships, managing relationships with GCF partners. He also superintends the selection of investment priorities, project development and institutional strengthening.

“The fund is driving a paradigm shift to see how the implementation of climate change mitigation projects will bring change to any country, ” said the Senegalese who is based at the fund’s headquarters in South Korea.

Nakoulima is touring the region to explain how countries can access funding for climate actions. He has also been to South Africa, Zambia and Malawi. Namibia was one of the five countries who had bid to host the fund.

Responding to the climate change challenges requires collective action from all countries, cities, businesses, and private citizens – who will be partners of the GCF, he said.

Among these concerted efforts, advanced economies have formally agreed to jointly mobilise US$100 billion per year by 2020, from a variety of sources, to address the pressing mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.

Governments also agreed that a major share of new multilateral, multi billion dollar funding should be channeled through the Green Climate Fund. At the G7 Summit in June 2015, leaders emphasised GCF’s role as a key institution for global climate finance.

As of last month, the Green Climate Fund has raised US$10,2 billion equivalent in pledges from 42 state governments. These funds will be disbursed to beneficiaries through selected financial institutions in various countries. Nakoulima said although the fund is still developing policies, it helps in developing strategic frameworks, accrediting entities, developing pipeline and sharing information and experiences.

“For partners to access support they have to be accredited through their country representatives. This accreditation lasts five years and is to ensure that entities seeking assistance are compliant with legal requirements of individual countries, ” he said.

“We assist with loans, grants, guarantees and equity and tailor our interaction to the projects we sponsor, ” he said.

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