Development of a Sub-national Climate Fund to accelerate local climate action in Cambodia

The proposal seeks USD 446,345 over 24 months to address the gap between national-level climate finance and grassroots implementation in Cambodia. It aims to create a single-source sub-national climate fund (SCF) to replace fragmented financing pathways, providing a formalised structure for public and private investment. Key activities include a scoping study on institutional environments, the development of an operating manual, and a National Roadmap for fund management. The project also focuses on capacity building, targeting the training of 55 fund managers and 35 stakeholders, with a minimum 20% female participation rate. The initiative is led by the National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development Secretariat (NCDD-S) with technical support from the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and oversight from the Ministry of Environment.

• Cambodia is highly vulnerable to climate change, ranking 14th out of 180 countries in the Climate Risk Index 2021 for weather-related loss events between 2000 and 2019.
• Climate projections for Cambodia indicate a mean annual temperature increase of 1C by 2050 and 2.5C by 2100, with sea level rise potentially reaching 0.56m by 2090, flooding 25,000 hectares of coastal areas.
• Business-as-usual GHG emissions in Cambodia are expected to reach 155 million tCO2e/year by 2030 when including the Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU) sector, which will account for 49.2 percent of those emissions.
• A critical barrier to local climate action is the lack of a nationwide framework to operationalize sub-national climate funds, leaving a gap in the facilitation of international and national finance for grassroots initiatives.
• Existing sub-national financing mechanisms, such as the Sub-national Investment Facility (SNIF), lack specific climate or green investment criteria and rely on annual performance assessments for fund distribution.
• The Performance-based Climate Resilience Grant (PBCRG) under the LoCAL facility has faced challenges with low investment volumes (USD 15,000 to 50,000 per activity) and long disbursement timeframes of 1 to 2 years.
• Approximately 86 percent of climate-relevant expenditure in Cambodia is externally funded, highlighting a need to better engage the private sector through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to move beyond a donor-based approach.
• The proposal targets a minimum 20 percent participation rate for women in the development of the Sub-national Climate Fund, including consultations and training for fund managers.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2024). Development of a Sub-national Climate Fund to accelerate local climate action in Cambodia. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/20240228-khm011-ap-publication.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. Development of a Sub-national Climate Fund to accelerate local climate action in Cambodia. 2024. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/20240228-khm011-ap-publication.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=Development of a Sub-national Climate Fund to accelerate local climate action in Cambodia |date=28 February 2024 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/20240228-khm011-ap-publication.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2024development, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{Development of a Sub-national Climate Fund to accelerate local climate action in Cambodia}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2024}, month = feb, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/20240228-khm011-ap-publication.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }