Support to Green Climate Fund proposal development in Zambia
NDF and the World Bank (WB) will share the costs of preparing a full Green Climate Fund (GCF) funding proposal package for Zambia
The Nordic Development Fund (NDF) has approved a grant of EUR 250,000 that will contribute to the costs of preparing a full GCF funding proposal on the Transforming Landscapes and Resilience for Development Project (TRALARD) in Zambia.
The proposed GCF funding will complement a new WB USD 100 million loan to Zambia and allow for increasing the scope and coverage of the TRALARD in northern Zambia.
The proposed intervention area for the planned GCF funding in Northern Zambia faces growing challenges due to climate change and the high rates of poverty. The region’s ability to cope with climate change impacts is aggravated by several factors, the most important being poverty. More than half of the rapidly growing population experience a high degree of incidence of extreme poverty, meaning most of the poor are extremely poor. In addition to high levels of poverty, people in this region are particularly vulnerable to climate change and weather variability due to their dependency on agriculture and natural resources. The primary economic activities include subsistence agriculture, fishing and use of forest resources. Severe poverty and food insecurity are widespread.
The development of a full GCF funding proposal for TRALARD will seek to have the proposed intervention focus on addressing the main drivers of environmental degradation, natural resource exploitation and persistent poverty. The plan is to have the GCF TRALARD proposal focus on improving poor vulnerable communities’ livelihoods, food security and resilience to climate change.
The Nordic countries are staunch supporters of the Green Climate Fund, which is the financing mechanism for the UNFCCC. The general concept for the GCF came out of the COP 15 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009. Since its formal establishment, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are or have been members of the GCF Board. The Nordic countries have pledged significant contributions to the capitalisation and demonstrated their commitment by being among the first countries to sign contribution agreements with the GCF. Sweden is the single highest per-capita contributor to the GCF, while Norway recently announced that it intends to double its support to the Fund in the forthcoming replenishment. The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) is the first Nordic institution to receive GCF accreditation.
