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Jamaica Preps For Full Benefits From Green Climate Fund

April 20, 2016 Webmaster

Albert Daley: We have developed a proposal and they are favourably disposed to making the funding available to us.

With its role as National Designated Authority (NDA) with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) secure, Jamaica’s Climate Change Division is moving to ensure it successfully fulfils the functions.

To that end, the division recently applied to the GCF for financing to boost its capacity to deliver on its mandate as NDA.

“We have developed a proposal and they are favourably disposed to making the funding available to us, but there are some conditionalities that we have to meet,” the division’s principal director, Albert Daley, told The Gleaner.

It was not clear when the island would receive the official final word from the Fund.

Meanwhile, as NDA, the division serves as the GCF’s “first point of contact” for the country while also providing information to local actors on the GCF.

“An important role is not only to provide information re the GCF’s facilities, services and offerings for loans and grants; it also has the task of recommending national implementing entities (NIEs), which are institutions through which the GCF channels funds to a country or region and which is given oversight responsibility for the funds,” Daley noted.

Already, he said, the division has approached two public entities that could likely fill that role.

“Once we recommend, then the GCF will begin working with the entity we recommend to complete the process of accreditation,” he revealed.

OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP PROPOSALS

With an accredited NIE, the island can go all out to develop proposals for projects that it can itself administer.

“The ideal thing is not for people outside the country to submit proposals on our behalf, but for us to submit our own projects so that whatever returns from them will be in the country,” Daley noted.

As NDA, the division also has as its mandate to provide assurances to the GCF that whatever proposals are coming from Jamaica are in line with the island’s national priority areas for action, pursuant to its climate-change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

“The NDA is required to submit a no-objection letter to the GCF to say we have no objection, as the NDA, to [any proposed] project going forward because it is a national priority. We are also expected to indicate the extent to which a consultative process was followed in terms of developing the project,” Daley revealed.

According to the division boss, there is no question of the value of the step Jamaica has taken in having the CCD so designated.

“If we don’t have an NDA, we cannot initiate dialogue or advance any work with the GCF. For a country to engage with the GCF, it is a requirement that they have an NDA. They will only consider a project, for example, if it is endorsed by an NDA; it is a prerequisite for engagement with the GCF,” he explained.

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Caribbean urged to make full use of Green Climate Fund

May 30, 2014 Webmaster

The cost of energy in the Caribbean is the highest in the world, according to the Caribbean Development Bank, but governments have increasingly been pushing renewable sources of energy, like these solar-powered road on Highway 2000 in Jamaica.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – A senior official of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) says the operationalising of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) provides an important opportunity for regional countries to not only adapt to climate change but also to mitigate its effects.

In addition, Selwin Hart, the Climate Change Finance Advisor with the CDB said the fund could also assist the Caribbean move towards renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“The cost of energy in the Caribbean is the highest in the world. This represents a serious strike on competitiveness, economic growth and job creation and the GCF presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for countries to have a stable source to financing to address the vulnerabilities both as it relates to importing fossil fuels as well as the impacts of climate change,” he said.

He said one of the major problems facing Caribbean countries in the past has been the lack of capacity to effectively access and use funds even when they were available.

“Many of the requirements for accessing global funds lie outside of the reach of many of the small capacity-constraint counties of the region. You have to undertake a rigorous examination in terms of fiduciary standards and social and environmental safeguards,” Hart said.

The CDB, as part of its climate resilient strategy, has been assisting countries to build that capacity. However, in some instances it is more feasible for that capacity to be built at a regional level rather than at the level of individual countries.

The bank has also been tasked by Caribbean leaders to lead the resource mobilisation effort and in this regard, the CDB is trying to position itself to serve at a regional financial intermediary.

The GCF will support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing countries using thematic funding windows’. It is intended to be the centre piece of efforts to raise climate finance of US$100 billion a year by 2020.

Meanwhile, the GCF for which preparations have been ongoing since 2010, has recently been finalised by its board; marking an end to a long and tedious process and giving the green light for the fund to move forward to mobilise resources.

Executive director at the GCF secretariat, Hela Cheikhrouhou, said that this is an important development which will put in place

a multilateral financing institution that is focused on providing concessional financing to both private and public sector beneficiaries in developing countries.

The Jamaica Observer;