Deadline: 29-Feb-2024
With funding from the UK Government, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has established the Climate Finance Network (CFN), a peer-to-peer network and a knowledge management and technical support facility to support the identification and scaling up of climate finance innovations in the region.
The CFN facilitates acceleration and adoption/replication of climate budget planning and finance approaches across government in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders. In addition, CFN recognizes the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in climate finance innovations, therefore it aims to enable access to information about models, approaches and experiences in user-friendly formats.
To facilitate a more productive state-society as well as a mutually respectful and beneficial interaction around climate action, UNDP calls for a collaborative engagement with civil society on climate action. This contributes to the CFN’s workstreams on access to climate finance, gender and social inclusion, and transparency and accountability. CSOs are seen in this process as key possible partners of relevant government institutions to fill in the existing gaps and provide innovative, practical solutions to enable climate action.
Purpose
- The Primary purpose of Collaborative Engagement with Civil Society on Climate Action is to support generation of initiatives that contribute to the collective power of CSOs and bring about positive social change and build a powerful socio-economic and political agenda to address climate change.
- Specifically, the collaborative engagement approach will:
- prioritize dialogue and collaboration between all stakeholders to contribute to policy outcomes, while recognizing the importance for CSOs to meaningfully participate in decision-making at multiple governance level and safeguard their rights.
- mobilize stakeholders on the issues of data, access to information, transparency and accountability of climate budgets and expenditures, gender-responsiveness, and meeting climate change commitments, including Nationally Determined Contributions.
- promote engagement of young people and women’s organizations in climate change budget processes.
- foster multi-stakeholder collaboration and innovation at multiple levels on climate action – including nature-based solutions and mainstreaming of adaptation measures.
Funding Information
- Maximum amount allocated for each grant is USD 40,000 for both coalitions and sole CSOs.
Areas of Intervention
- Applying organizations are expected to devise proposals that contribute to the above engagement approach and covers at least one of the four or a combination of the areas of intervention below:
- Access to information
- Access to information is the cornerstone of the transparency and accountability agenda. Without access to credible information and in forms that is easily understood, public and CSOs will not be able to fully engage in decision making processes and hold decisionmakers and institutions to account. However, climate change data is usually available in silos and with specific institutions. The data available is often technical, unanalysed, and difficult for non-experts to understand. In addition, access to climate change finance data (including budget, and projects not reflected in the budget) is not straightforward. The dialogue on loss and damage and preventive action, that includes adaptation, has also been a key point of discussion in the recent past. However, the preventive action is constrained, particularly at the sub national level, by lack of resources and data. Therefore, CFN will aim to improve access to information in target countries. The emphasis will be on:
- Supporting key ministries, agencies, departments to make relevant data publicly available on their websites.
- Strengthening the capacities of civil society, including in collaboration with universities, financial institutions working on climate data, to understand and analyze the data.
- Access to information is the cornerstone of the transparency and accountability agenda. Without access to credible information and in forms that is easily understood, public and CSOs will not be able to fully engage in decision making processes and hold decisionmakers and institutions to account. However, climate change data is usually available in silos and with specific institutions. The data available is often technical, unanalysed, and difficult for non-experts to understand. In addition, access to climate change finance data (including budget, and projects not reflected in the budget) is not straightforward. The dialogue on loss and damage and preventive action, that includes adaptation, has also been a key point of discussion in the recent past. However, the preventive action is constrained, particularly at the sub national level, by lack of resources and data. Therefore, CFN will aim to improve access to information in target countries. The emphasis will be on:
- Communication for Development
- Closely linked to access to information, Communication for Development initiatives focus on two-way communication initiatives that allows people, including from disadvantage and marginalized communities to participate in decision-making processes. Media is a key tool in amplifying the voices from the ground and facilitating the two-way engagement between people and decision-makers. CFN will build on the recommendations from the research on gendered impact of climate change finance and aim to support more women’s voices on climate change. Specifically,
- Support media training on climate change finance (similar to initiative in Pakistan)
- Support media (including community radios) to develop specific programmes – such as discussions programmes, call-in programmes – to facilitate two-way communication on climate change on various platforms
- Closely linked to access to information, Communication for Development initiatives focus on two-way communication initiatives that allows people, including from disadvantage and marginalized communities to participate in decision-making processes. Media is a key tool in amplifying the voices from the ground and facilitating the two-way engagement between people and decision-makers. CFN will build on the recommendations from the research on gendered impact of climate change finance and aim to support more women’s voices on climate change. Specifically,
- Social innovation and social accountability initiatives for climate change
- Social innovation refers to collaborative development and implementation of solutions, whereas social accountability refers to collective action of citizens and CSOs to hold decision makers to account. Both these initiatives are necessary to promote climate action at multiple levels. Therefore, the CFN will aim to encourage its NGO/CSO partners to develop social innovation or social accountability initiatives that aim to find new and innovative solutions for mainstreaming climate considerations in the budget cycle, monitor utilization and results. These solutions will be developed and implemented in collaboration with a range of stakeholders – from local communities to local governments to private sector etc…, Towards this end, CFN will support innovation and social accountability challenges in target countries, and support implementation of winning solutions (including citizen budget initiatives.)
- Exploring alternative sources of finance for adaptation at the local government level
- Several studies indicate that the private sector contribution to adaptation is minimal, a UNEP study indicates it is as low as 2%. The assignment of responsibilities that strengthen resilience of the communities and infrastructure often lies with the sub national government. Their ability to work on adaptation related initiatives is constrained by limited resources and capacity as well. CFN can through the CSOs explore alternative modes and sources of financing including private, philanthropy, and blended sources and supporting local governments in accessing resources under the ecological transfers.
- Access to information
Eligibility Criteria
- Registered Non-profit organizations (civil society organizations; think tanks; educational institutions, including public universities, training institutions; etc.). National and local civil society organisations (including community-based organisations, NGOs, and Indigenous Peoples organisations) that are working encouraged to apply. Organizations should be registered in accordance with the legal requirements of the Government of their home country and must be able to provide organization’s statute along with the debt certificate upon request. Official registration must come from the government, regardless of the administrative level. The CSO’s bank account must reflect the same name as in the registration.
- The organization profile provides a proven record of at least four years of direct experience in project management, policy research, policy analysis, human resource development, service delivery and similar particularly on the intersection of climate finance and social development.
- Experience of managing projects of comparable budget size within the last two years will be considered as an asset.
- Although, not mandatory, CSOs are welcome to submit proposals as coalitions. In this case, the main applicants must provide support letters from relevant co-applicants specifying the role of the co-applicant. In case of a coalition, the main applicant shall have at least four years of proven experience in project management, policy research, policy analysis, human resource development, service delivery and similar (see above), whereas co-applicants shall have at least two years of proven experience in the similar areas. The main applicant must also be registered and have the organization bank account opened under the organization’s name.
- Only CSOs or coalitions from Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, and Sri Lanka will be eligible to apply. Depending on the applications received, it is possible that a grant will not be awarded to any CSO in a particular country or two CSOs with separate or a combined proposal in one country will be awarded. A total of five grants will be awarded under this cycle of the Collaborative Engagement with Civil Society on Climate Action Grant (CSOs for Climate Action Grant). Collaboration with relevant UNDP Country Offices is also encouraged.
For more information, visit UNDP.