Qualified financing of climate projects: CliFiT seminar for South American decision makers

Due to the enormous global demand for climate mitigation funds, a complex structure of international funding has emerged. The complexity results more than anything from the variety of access arrangements, funding priorities and application requirements. This is just one fact taken into account by the Climate Finance Readiness Training (CliFiT) Toolkit: this collection of information and methods that has been developed by adelphi will help its users to take an overview of the available funding sources and to use any raised funds effectively in the financing of national climate mitigation projects.

On behalf of GIZ’s regional programme "Strengthening the Regional Organization ACTO", adelphi conducted a two-day CliFiT training workshop for the member countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (OTCA) at the end of May 2015 in Brasilia, Brazil. The aim of the training program was to (1) introduce representatives of the OTCA member states to climate finance and make them acquainted with the different climate financing options, sources and mechanisms, and (2) support them in the development of adequate solutions for their respective countries.

The first part of the training focused on the "Climate Finance Readiness" concept and the associated challenges for developing and emerging countries as well as the landscape of international climate finance. An emphasis was placed here on the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as the latest climate financing instrument in the international context. The second part of the training workshop treated the required governance structures and associated processes to channel (international) climate finance at the national level. The discussions and exercises centered mainly around climate strategies and policies as well as the possibility of establishing national and regional climate funds. In addition, the topic of project pipelines has been discussed in the context of the preparation of proposals to the GCF.

The contents and methodology of the training workshop were based on the Climate Finance Readiness Training (CliFiT) toolkit developed by adelphi on behalf of GIZ's CF Ready programme and with financial support by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).