The UK Fast-Start Finance Contribution

The UK committed GBP 1.06 billion in Fast-Start Finance (FSF) as of November 2011, primarily through multilateral institutions and the Climate Investment Funds. While the UK has increased climate-targeted international finance and adopted transparency standards like the International Aid Transparency Initiative, the report questions whether the FSF contribution is truly "new and additional" and notes a gap between transparency commitments and the actual public availability of project business cases.

• As of November 2011, the UK had spent and committed GBP 1.06 billion in climate finance, utilizing the Environmental Transformation Fund in 2010/11 and the International Climate Fund (ICF) in 2011/12. Additionally, the ICF was slated to spend GBP 2.9 billion between April 2011 and March 2015.
• The largest portion of the UK's FSF consists of GBP 715 million in capital contributions to the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), which are managed by the World Bank and Regional Development Banks.
• There is uncertainty regarding whether the UK's FSF is "new and additional" because the UK included projects and programs that were already being funded prior to the FSF period, including contributions to the Congo Basin Forest Fund and the CIFs.
• While the UK participates in the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and requires government departments to create business cases for projects, these business cases are rarely available in practice and were not applied retroactively to commitments made before January 2011.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The UK Fast-Start Finance Contribution. https://www.wri.org/research/uk-fast-start-finance-contribution

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The UK Fast-Start Finance Contribution. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/uk-fast-start-finance-contribution.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The UK Fast-Start Finance Contribution |url=https://www.wri.org/research/uk-fast-start-finance-contribution |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendfaststart, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The UK Fast-Start Finance Contribution}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/uk-fast-start-finance-contribution}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }