12 December 2014: At the event ‘Tools for Climate Finance Readiness: Building Capacity to Support Increased Finance Flows,’ adelphi and Transparency International (TI) facilitated a discussion on various approaches to capacity building, such as through e-learning courses; social media; local media, civil society and youth training; programmes in financial planning, access to finance, delivering finance, and monitoring and reporting; and policy incentives.

Zakir Hussain Khan, TI Bangladesh, drew attention to TI’s focus on capacity building for grassroots civil society organizations, highlighting their potential as climate finance watchdogs. He said the challenges faced include lack of coordination among civil society actors and the absence of national implementing entities.

Yamil Bonduki, UN Development Programme (UNDP), drew attention to UNDP projects, including a German-funded Green Climate Fund (GCF) Readiness Support Programme currently being piloted in nine countries, and highlighted lessons learned through the implementation of the Low Emissions Capacity Building (LECB) programme.

Belynda Petrie, OneWorld, noted most countries in Africa rely almost exclusively on unpredictable and elusive external financing for climate change adaptation and mitigation. She listed critical conditions for accelerating climate finance readiness, including: politically endorsed inter-ministerial institutional arrangements; aligned investment planning; and climate-integrated public finance.

Xing Fu-Bertaux, German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ), described a diagnostic self-assessment tool or score-card that assists policymakers to develop a domestic vision on the use of climate finance. She noted that the tool is structured around readiness factors, including the availability of structures for accessing external funding, capacity for spending and implementation, private sector engagement, strategic planning and the institutions involved in climate finance.

Dennis Tänzler, adelphi, introduced the Climate Finance Readiness Training (CliFit)Toolkit, which is being used in Chile, Togo, Viet Nam and Tajikistan to build coherent national climate finance frameworks, assist in accessing international finance and guide effective and transparent use of funds. He described the ToolKit’s interactive training tactics, which include role-play, mapping exercises, case methods and presentations.

In the discussion, participants considered the importance of: learning from regional approaches to access external finance; countries’ assessment of their own readiness; including indigenous peoples in readiness activities; and learning from climate finance readiness projects in the Pacific and the Caribbean. [IISD RS ENBOTS Coverage] [IISD RS ENBOTS Video Coverage of Side Event] [IISD RS Coverage of Lima Climate Change Conference] [Transparency International Event Announcement] [adelphi Event Announcement]