World Bank, UN Launch Climate Change Finance Website
To help developing countries make sense of the multitude of funds and instruments available for climate finance a website, www.climatefinanceoptions.org,was launched at the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancun.
Climate finance issues are high on the agenda in Cancun. The Climate Finance Options (CFO) web platform, envisioned as the go-to site for information on climate finance, will help developing countries in their efforts to identify critical sources of funding to combat climate change.
“Developing countries need access to information on potential sources of finance, inspiring best practice examples, research results, and tools for better investment decision making. The Climate Finance Options Platform provides a window to such information,” said Warren Evans, director of the World Bank’s Environment Department.
Within the framework of global negotiations on climate change, the World Bank Group and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) have jointly developed the web-based knowledge platform in close cooperation with the UNFCCC Secretariat.
“For climate assistance to be most effective, it is critical for countries to access, sequence, and effectively integrate climate finance sources at the national level. UNDP is therefore pleased to be working in partnership to provide the CFO platform and assist countries to navigate the complex sources of finance through a one-stop shop,” said Veerle Vandeweerd, director of the Environment and Energy Group at UNDP.
Developing countries often face an information gap as they search around for funds to support their climate change development needs. Those needs are demanding increasingly enormous amounts of financial flows — as much as US$100 billion for adaptation and US$175 million for mitigation per year in developing countries by 2030. Many developing countries are already taking action from their own scarce resources.
The CFO provides a number of services. It documents and analyzes the types of funds available, how much is available for what, the criteria for accessing them, how the monies are governed and administered. The platform also provides examples and prototypes of successful cases in which different funds were blended to get the maximum impact. And the CFO is a knowledge center with a wide range of literature and tools to enable project developers to analyze their own projects for better informed decisions.
The platform will generate a number of benefits, including:
- Improved access to information on climate finance as a basis for more informed planning and decision making by developing country governments;
- Greater equity in the ability of users from countries and communities with varying levels of capacity to access the system;
- Useful documentation in preparation of policies related to financing mitigation and adaptation;
The CFO website will also provide up-to-date links to sources monitoring the implementation of Fast Start Finance pledges.