News

The Climate Finance Training for Sector Experts (CliFit4SE), held virtually in April 2021, enhanced the climate financing knowledge of 45 policymakers working in the food, agriculture, and forestry sectors in the ASEAN region. The training conveyed practical information on how to access climate funding for implementing regional and national priorities effectively and transparently.

Policymakers from Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) improved their capacity to develop bankable climate projects in the land use sectors and to seek funding for them, specifically through the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In two batches in April 2021, the ‘Climate Finance Training for Sector Experts (CliFit4SE) – promoting climate-smart land use in ASEAN’ has trained in total of 45 government officers, working in the food, agriculture, and forestry (FAF) sectors in the Southeast Asian region. They received information on climate finance opportunities and how to access them for implementing regional and national priorities and action plans effectively and transparently.

The training offered an interactive, tailor-made approach for enabling participants to take the initial steps in setting up climate-finance projects at national and regional level. It consisted of four modules with the topics of (1) Climate finance panorama of the existing potential funds; (2) Climate smart land use concepts in the climate finance projects; (3) Financing instruments for bankable projects, and (4) Green Climate Fund (GCF) project proposal development. Moreover, the training explored lesson learned and case studies from various successful GCF proposal submissions within and outside Southeast Asia. One particular deep dive was dedicated to a multi-country proposal on agriculture sector readiness to enhance implementation of Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) priorities in Southeast Asia which is currently being developed for submission to the GCF. The proposal is led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Asia and Pacific Office of the United Nations in cooperation with several ASEAN Member States.

After the training, a participant shared her feedback.

“This is the first time I feel confident in preparing a proposal for Green Climate Fund (GCF). I really like the exercise when the trainer showed examples of proposals outside the Southeast Asia region. This has broadened my perspectives on what we can do actually” 

The training was organized virtually by the Climate Smart Land Use in ASEAN (CSLU) project, with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in close cooperation with the ASEAN Secretariat. It was designed to support ASEAN Member States in their national implementation of ASEAN strategies and action plans as well the countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Name and contact person:
Ms Zahra Mutiara, Advisor Climate Smart Land Use (CSLU) in ASEAN
Email: zahra.mutiara@giz.de

Key buzzwords / “tags”
ASEAN, Climate Finance, Climate Smart Land Use, Food Security, Climate Change