GCF approves first fast-track NAP grants for Liberia and Nepal

GCF announces NAP grants for Liberia and Nepal with UNEP and UNDP as Accredited Entities
14 November 2016, Marrakesh, Morocco: The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has announced the approval of its first grants in support of NAPs under a new and expedited procedure.
 

Under the fast-track procedure, Liberia will receive USD 2.2 million with UNDP acting as the delivery partner to support the NAP process, whilst Nepal will receive a grant of USD 2.9 million via UN Environment.

The announcement of the grants was made by Javier Manzanares, Executive Director a.i. and Zaheer Fakir, GCF Board Co-Chair, at a high-level event convened by the President of COP22, H.E. Salaheddine Mezouar, on Progress in advancing NAPs.

The Board adopted the decision to expedite support for the formulation and implementation of NAPs earlier this year, setting a funding lthreashold of up to USD 3 million per country, which can be directly approved by the Secretariat. Countries can also access resources beyond USD 3 million for NAPs through the established project approval process.

At the high-level event, Ms. Adriana Dinu, Executive Coordinator of the Global Environmental Finance Unit of UNDP, said, "I would like to  highlight the important contributions that the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Country Fund and Special Climate Change Fund and more recently the Green Climate Fund have made in the countries we support. These funds are critical enablers of urgently needed adaptation action and offer a variety of distinct options for supporting country-driven priorities and actions that LDCs and developing countries can pursue towards resilient development and growth."

The joint UNDP/UNEP NAP-GSP has provided NAP support to Liberia and Nepal since 2014. In 2015, the NAP-GSP supported a four-day multi-stakeholder meeting in Buchanan, to identify entry points for the Government of Liberia to institutionalize Liberia’s NAP process. Based on the discussions at the meeting as well as a comprehensive review of ongoing relevant activities in Liberia, NAP-GSP provided a stocktaking of Liberia’s activities relevant to the NAP process and recommended next steps. 
 
Delegates from Nepal attended the NAP-GSP Regional Training Workshop for Asian LDCs in February 2014 - in which an overview NAP timeline schedule was formulated by the Nepal NAP country team. Since then, NAP-GSP held discussions with Ministries of Environment, Planning and Finance to raise awareness and introduce the NAP process.  
 
The GCF grant to Nepal will support the implementation of the NAP process via support from UN Environment. Their NAP process was officially launched in September 2015. The GCF grant to Liberia will further build on the advancements in formulating and implementing their NAP, with the support of UNDP.