Africa is under-served by adaptation finance. Africa received USD 7.9 billion of an annual average of USD 46 billion in adaptation finance for 2019 and 2020. There is a large disparity between climate finance pledged, finance approved, and finance disbursed by the multilateral climate funds. As of January 2022, only 9.23% of global climate financing was earmarked for sub-Saharan Africa for adaptation purposes. Almost one third of the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF's) Direct Access Entities (DAEs) are in Africa, but only 11 out of 54 countries have at least one national accredited entity. DAEs are only accredited for projects with budgets below USD 50 million and are therefore limited in their ability to access funding for larger projects.

This project will develop a concept note as a starting point for a full funding proposal to the GCF. To achieve this, actions will include a desk review of national climate-related development strategies and reference documents in the target country; identification of a promising project idea, in close collaboration with relevant stakeholders; and facilitation of a consultative workshop to discuss the project’s rationale, main intervention areas and implementation arrangements.

Through the Technical Assistance Program (TAP), the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) will accelerate the mobilization of adaptation finance. Through the direct access modality, GCA will enhance local capacity to formulate robust concept notes for funding consideration by the Green Climate Fund.

AAAP will support the climate risk assessment studies requested by the GCF.

• Four robust project/program concept notes and pipeline developed, for Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Nigeria.
• For the Democratic Republic of Congo, new sources of climate finance for adaptation and resilience investments identified. 

• Development of a roadmap with key actions to prepare the full funding proposal, including the necessary complementary studies, the evaluation of the cost of these studies and the cost of the full funding proposal.

• Relevant initiatives or projects planned or underway and implemented in the project intervention areas
• Development of a portfolio of paradigm-shifting adaptation projects and programs, i.e., development of concept notes, supporting and enhancing funding proposals.

• Building capacities for adaptation finance planning, mobilization and implementation, i.e., Climate Public Expenditure Reviews.
• Direct Access strengthening with the aim to diversify and to increase  the delivery channels, i.e., New Accreditation and Accreditation upgrades.