Catalyzing climate finance for the Southern African Development Community
Lead institution(s)
Summary
One of the biggest barriers to sustainable development in the Global South is access to finance to support the implementation of climate action.Read more
One of the biggest barriers to sustainable development in the Global South is access to finance to support the implementation of climate action. In southern Africa, countries are still struggling to draw together feasible and bankable projects that comprehensively address their Paris Agreement targets. Consequently, the Green Climate Fund — established within the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change to assist countries in the Global South to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change — remains constrained by a limited pipeline of effective country-owned project proposals, and it is falling short of its commitment to channel 50% of total funding through direct access in recipient countries. Relatively few efforts are directed towards overcoming the barriers facing climate finance practitioners in the Global South.
In response to this challenge, this project seeks to enhance access to international climate finance by Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The project builds on the Southern Africa Climate Finance Partnership, which aims to support country-owned and managed climate finance portfolios that can be financed through the Green Climate Fund and other avenues, mobilizing private investment where appropriate. Among the activities supported by the project are knowledge generation and synthesis, targeted capacity building, and country programming support (including South-South bilateral exchanges). Support for gender-responsive climate finance will be a cross-cutting theme in all three activities.