Climate Finance Fundamentals 11: The Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the newest actor in the multilateral climate finance architecture and became fully operational in 2015. Since then, it has approved USD 2,634 million for 54 projects. The GCF is an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the UNFCCC. A legally independent institution hosted by South Korea, it has its own secretariat and the World Bank as its interim trustee. It functions under the guidance of, and is accountable to, the UNFCCC COP. The 24 GCF Board members, with equal representation of developed and developing countries with support from the secretariat, have been working to operationalize the Fund since their first meeting in August 2012.

This year, the GCF focused on addressing policy gaps in essential policies and frameworks to receive and manage finance as well as policy reforms to speed up proposal approval and disbursement of approved funding. By October, it also accredited a total of 59 implementing entities. The initial resource mobilization effort that began in June 2014, raised USD 10.3 billion from 43 contributing countries (including eight developing countries) as well as a handful of regions and cities. By September 2017, USD 10.1 billion of pledged finance was formalized through contribution agreements. Heading into COP 23 in Bonn under a Fiji COP presidency, this Climate Finance Fundamental provides a snapshot of the operationalization and functions of the Fund. While the Fund’s role in a post-2020 climate regime as the major finance channel under the Convention was confirmed, the scale of its resourcing remains to be clarified post-Paris. Past editions of this Climate Finance Fundamental detail the design and initial operationalization phases of the Fund.

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