GCF Readiness: NDA strengthening, country programming support and project pipeline development in Somalia

On 15th June 2022, the Green Climate Fund Readiness Programme started its implementation in Somalia, targeting the National Designated Authority, which is the Somalia's Ministry for Environment & Climate Change for capacity building and institutional strengthening, to ensure that this office has the necessary capacity to pr ovidestrategic oversight of GCF activities in Somalia

GWPEAf received funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF)  to impliment the National Designated Authority(NDA)/ GCF Readiness project in Somalia.

The 15 months project which started on 16th June 2022, constitues Somalia’s first readiness project outside of the National Adaptation Plan strengthening through UNDP.  The project activities fill the urgent need for NDA strengthening, development of a country programme and establishment of a GCF pipeline for Somalia.

The main challenge that this project is set to overcome is that of the insufficient NDA technical and institutional capacity to effectively oversee climate finance in Somalia. This limited capacity exists because:

  • The NDA does not have the existing operational procedures or technical capacity to effectively fulfill its role;
  • While policy for climate change co-ordination has recently been passed in Somalia, this does not cover climate finance;
  • Somalia does not have a Country Programme for the GCF;
  • Somalia’s country project pipeline is not well developed; and
  • The NDA does not yet have an adequate system for collecting, managing, and sharing lessons learnt and best practices specifically on climate finance.

Project Objectives
It is expected that, upon completion of the readiness activities, the NDA of Somalia will have:

  1. The required processes and tools in place to oversee GCF activities;
  2. A well-developed Country Programme for strategic engagement with the GCF;
  3. An initial pipeline of priority projects and hands-on experience in overseeing the development of GCF concept notes; and
  4. An established knowledge management platform to collect, curate and disseminate best practices and lessons learned from GCF activities in-country.

These activities will complement the existing NAP strengthening activities, as well as the activities of the NDA currently taking place in Somalia. It is expected that the outcomes of the readiness activities will facilitate an increase in the country’s capacity to mobilise climate finance through the GCF.

The project is  hosted by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change which is the NDA of Somalia and undertaken by a Programme Management Unit which is constituted by the Project Manager, Climate Resilience Expert, and the Development Finance Expert