Adaptation Fund Reaches Close to USD 90 Million in New Pledges for 2019
The Adaptation Fund convened a dialogue of contributing governments and others interested in pledging to the Fund during the COP 25 climate conference in Madrid, and succeeded in mobilizing a total of about USD 89 million from 11 different national and regional governments so far for 2019.
New pledges announced at COP 25 include those from Germany (USDeq 33.0 million), Switzerland (USD 15.0 million), Norway (USDeq 15.3 million from 2018-2019 that will be applied to 2019), first-time contributor Poland (USD 1 million), Ireland (USDeq 333,000) and the Walloon (USDeq 4.2 million), Flanders (USDeq 1.9 million) and Brussels (USDeq 441,000) Regional Governments of Belgium.
These followed recent announcements at the Climate Action Summit in October of contributions from Sweden (USDeq 53 million over 2019-2022, of which USD 13.5 million will be applied to 2019), first-time contributor the Government of the Canadian Province of Quebec (USD 2.2 million) and Spain (USDeq 2.2 million). Sweden’s four-year pledge marked the first multi-year commitment to the Fund. Poland’s first-time contribution also represented the 21st government to contribute to the Fund, marking a growing range of contributors. Several governments such as Switzerland, Norway and Spain had not contributed to the Fund for several years, so it signaled strong momentum for the Fund since it began serving the Paris Agreement last January and the importance of its concrete, effective and scalable adaptation work on the ground to the most vulnerable countries.
During the Dec. 9 contributor dialogue, government leaders praised the Fund for its value in the global climate finance landscape for its tangible projects that are making positive impacts in the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities and for its pioneering Direct Access modality that builds country ownership in adaptation. Although the amount of resources mobilized nearly meets the Board’s target of USD 90 million for the year, increased climate ambition will need to occur to keep pace with the record demand for projects the Fund has faced over the last several years due to the rising urgency of climate change. This year alone, the Fund’s Board approved USD 188 million in new projects, and the Fund has an active pipeline of another USD 248 million in projects under development. In March 2019, the Board also received a record USD 268 million in funding requests across 40 new proposals.
Since 2010, the Adaptation Fund has committed about USD 720 million for climate change adaptation and resilience projects and programmes, including 100 concrete localized adaptation projects in the most vulnerable communities of developing countries around the world with more than 8.7 million direct beneficiaries. It also pioneered Direct Access, empowering countries to access funding and develop projects directly through accredited national implementing entities.
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Source: https://bit.ly/3931KBq
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