National Funding Entities: European Capacity Building Initiative

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Executive Summary

The future of the global climate change negotiations hinges on an eventual UNFCCC globally
embraced decision on climate change funding support for developing countries. Leading up to
and during the Conference of Parties (COP) in Copenhagen, some positive signs on funding
emerged. These positive signs, however, are in danger of turning into empty promises if issues of
governance on finance are not resolved. There is some hope that at the forthcoming COP in
Mexico, Parties will succeed in tackling these important issues—particularly issues of
governance at the centre. Attention will now need to urgently shift to issues of governance at the
national level. This Policy Report is an attempt to provide useful background in the forthcoming
discussions and negotiations of the UNFCCC. It is part of a series of ECBI and OIES
publications on the Reformed Finance Mechanism, most specifically on the case for devolution
of funding decisions to the national level.

Driven partly by some optimism on the funding side, but mostly by their strong conviction that
the time for “devolution” of responsibility to the national level has now come, several developing
countries are moving rapidly to organise themselves to manage the resources that will need to
eventually be channelled through the UNFCCC. Many already have, or are now in the process of
establishing, “national funding entities” specifically designed to manage this funding and to help
mainstream programmes and projects into national development strategies and plans at the v country level. Despite many differences in approach taken by the countries, one common feature
that emerges is the clearly stated or implied objective to link programmes and projects approved
for funding directly to some kind of overall climate change policy framework where this exists,
and/or to national development strategies and plans. By so doing, countries will be able to make
sure that these programmes and projects are fully aligned to their priorities and more
importantly, that they can help leverage existing funds and initiatives on climate change.

Click here to read the report “European Capacity Building Initiative