INSIDER: Four Ways the Green Climate Fund Can Strengthen Its Next Strategic Plan

The World Resources Institute outlines four critical areas for the Green Climate Fund's 2020-2023 Strategic Plan: aligning mitigation ambition with the 1.5°C goal through transformational metrics, clarifying adaptation and loss and damage approaches, balancing the speed of private finance mobilization with portfolio quality, and improving the accessibility of direct access funding for developing country institutions.

• The GCF needs to shift from measuring direct emission reductions to metrics that capture 'transformational potential', such as institutional and regulatory reforms, to align with 1.5°C goals. The author suggests an 'ambition filter' for investment criteria to ensure projects exceed minimum thresholds of ambition beyond direct reductions.
• The GCF exceeded its initial funding period targets (2015-2019) by allocating 53% of funding to adaptation, with 69% of that adaptation funding going to African countries, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The draft Strategic Plan proposes formalizing this higher level as the new allocation goal.
• The GCF's approach to 'loss and damage' is currently absent from the draft Strategic Plan, despite a COP25 invitation for the Board to provide financial resources for activities that avert, minimize, and address these impacts.
• There is a risk that the draft plan's indicative target of a $7:1 private finance leverage ratio may create perverse incentives, encouraging investments in low-risk activities rather than utilizing the GCF's 'concessional resources and high appetite for risk'.
• The GCF's direct access mechanism faces implementation hurdles; of the 56 accredited Direct Access Entities (DAEs), only 18 have had projects approved by the Board. Additionally, readiness and project preparation funding is described as 'cumbersome', with some applicants waiting 3-4 months for $50,000 grants.
• The GCF's country programs have been found by its independent evaluation unit to have 'not delivered on their aims yet', partly because they are often too broad and high-level to provide meaningful guidance to project developers.

APA

World Resources Institute (2020). INSIDER: Four Ways the Green Climate Fund Can Strengthen Its Next Strategic Plan. https://www.wri.org/technical-perspectives/insider-four-ways-green-climate-fund-can-strengthen-its-next-strategic-plan

Chicago

World Resources Institute. INSIDER: Four Ways the Green Climate Fund Can Strengthen Its Next Strategic Plan. 2020. https://www.wri.org/technical-perspectives/insider-four-ways-green-climate-fund-can-strengthen-its-next-strategic-plan.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=INSIDER: Four Ways the Green Climate Fund Can Strengthen Its Next Strategic Plan |date=3 February 2020 |url=https://www.wri.org/technical-perspectives/insider-four-ways-green-climate-fund-can-strengthen-its-next-strategic-plan |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2020insider, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{INSIDER: Four Ways the Green Climate Fund Can Strengthen Its Next Strategic Plan}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2020}, month = feb, url = {https://www.wri.org/technical-perspectives/insider-four-ways-green-climate-fund-can-strengthen-its-next-strategic-plan}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }