Building capacity for climate action: NDC Finance Fellowship program

 

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) were key to adopting the 2015 Paris Agreement, which outlines national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and identifies financial needs for mitigation and adaptation efforts. Most mitigation and adaptation contributions outlined in the NDCs of developing countries are based upon receiving international support. While support from the international community has addressed some capacity gaps, many conditional NDCs of low-income countries have finance, capacity-building, and technological needs. Recipient countries are hindered by the lack of accurate monitoring of climate finance flows, which prevents them from making more informed decisions about planning, prioritization, allocation of climate change resources, and measuring and evaluating progress.

The main purpose of the NDC Finance Fellowships is to enhance the capacity of 100 high-potential professionals from sub-Saharan Africa’s research and policy communities on the NDC financing mechanism. This bilingual capacity-building program (English and French) will train these professionals, who will be responsible for preparing and implementing NDCs and have the potential to be leaders in this domain. It will also explore key institutional, technical, and financial capacity gaps and needs with respect to the implementation of NDC targets at both the national and local levels.