Deadline: 24-Jul-23
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is calling for innovative solutions to promote adaptation through Climate Risk Finance based solutions to enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change.
The Adaptation Challenge Fund aspires to nurture ideas that will transform capacities of communities towards climate change and its impacts.
Climate change is a global issue but has localized impacts in remote areas fortified by the inability of marginalized communities to cope with its effects on livelihoods. These groups find it difficult to adapt to the changing patterns of climate in the fields of productive systems (agriculture and farming), health, WASH and many others. The adaptive measures taken so far by government institutions (e.g. Departments of Agriculture, Environment or Climate Change, Health etc.) are usually very traditional (e.g. direct cash transfer, high subsidies) and not sufficient to address the problem in all aspects. Civil society and private sector organizations on the other hand face technical and financial problems to identify, design, implement, monitor and report workable solutions.
Objectives
- The Adaptation Challenge Fund under the umbrella of GIZ’s Strengthening Climate Adaptation and Resilience (SAR) project is designed to meet the following objectives:
- To support the implementation of innovative financial instruments for adaptation and risk management to help vulnerable communities become more resilient to climate change
- To increase financial empowerment of communities that are particularly vulnerable to climate change by providing them with access to financial resources to implement adaptation measures
- To provide an opportunity for smaller organizations to test and pilot innovative instruments, contributing to building evidence around effective financial instruments for climate adaptation
- To develop capacities of individuals and organizations around adaptation to climate change, financial instruments and resilience.
Examples of Financial Instruments
- Microfinance & Climate Adaptation
- Climate Risk Insurance
- Community-based funds.
Funding Information
- The total volume of funding per project will be in the range of €30,000 to €70,000 (Please propose budget in equivalent of PKR). The selected projects will be implemented during the term starting September 2023 and ending December 2024.
Legal Aspects
- Any organization submitting a proposal under this call for procedure needs to be a legal entity under the laws of the Government of Pakistan and must submit proof of this. Also, it is required that the selected entities possess or have applied for a NOC from the government’s relevant authority to operate in the geographical area for which the project proposal is submitted. The applicant will be required to submit a written statement declaring that they have never participated in any illegal or unethical activities.
- The grant funding under this call for proposals will be utilized for implementing, monitoring, and reporting the selected project proposal within the time span specified in the signed contract. The grant cannot be utilized for the purchase of vehicles, building offices, or subcontracting without prior permission from GIZ Pakistan. All knowledge, data, patents, and publications produced under this grant will be the intellectual property of GIZ Pakistan and cannot be published or disseminated without prior permission.
- Further details on legal aspects and contractual modalities for selected applicants will be shared as General Terms & Conditions becoming part of the contract.
- (e.g., required legal status of the applicant; financial statements to be provided, items/types of costs that cannot be financed; conflict of interest, etc.)
Eligibility Criteria
- Organizations willing to submit applications for this call must fulfill the following criteria:
- The Applicant: The proposal submitting organization must:
- Be located within Pakistan (specifically in the provinces of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or Punjab);
- Have an ongoing or planned adaptation finance project that requires funding.
- Be a civil society organization (CBO or an NGO) registered with government and actively conforming to laws (renewal of registration, regular audits etc.)
- Have minimum 3 years’ experience of working with community and climate change related projects
- Present a strong team with relevant experience
- In case of a project consortium, at least one partner should be from non-profit sector,
- Be willing to provide the required financial contribution, ranging from 10-50% of the total project cost;
- Have documented policies for internal procedures regarding accounts, administration, human resources and control of sexual or workplace harassment.
- The proposals: The key eligibility criteria for concept note/short proposal will be as given below:
- Proposals focusing on sectors other than climate change adaptation and climate risk finance will not be eligible. Examples of eligible projects are outlined in the “Example of Financial Instruments.
- Proposals with incomplete provision of required documents will not be eligible.
- Applications arriving after deadline will not be eligible.
- Applications using templates other than those provided on the website will be not be eligible.
- The Applicant: The proposal submitting organization must:
Technical Criteria
- Focus on adaptation: The proposals should be focused on adaptation to the impacts of climate change and resilience rather than mitigation. This means that the project should aim to help vulnerable communities cope with the effects of climate change, rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Proposed Financial Instrument: The proposals shall clearly present a financial instrument proposed for adaptation and risk management.
- Innovative approaches: The proposals should suggest innovative and creative approaches to addressing the challenges of climate change adaptation with the proposed financial instrument. This may involve new technologies, methods, or partnerships.
- Target Groups: The project shall specifically address the needs of vulnerable groups, especially women, children, youth, elderly and people with disabilities (PWDs);
- Sustainability: The proposed project should be designed to have a lasting impact beyond the funding period, e.g., through building local capacity, promoting behavior change, or establishing sustainable funding sources.
- Scalability: The proposed project should be scalable which means that the same project/approach can be implementable in other similar geographic locations.
- Organizational capacity: The applicant should have valid registration, a functional bank account, the latest audit reports (2 years), Governance System (BoD), Policies for procurement, finance, human resources, and a robust M&E system.
Details: Implementation Starts/ Technical Assistance – September 2023.
For more information, visit Adaptation Challenge Fund.