Enhancing Vanuatu’s Ability to Seek Accreditation and Direct Access to the GCF

Readiness funding will support the identification, design and development of an Enhanced Direct Access (EDA) funding proposal to the GCF. Direct Access is not only Government policy and priority for climate finance but will also allow the government to directly and actively utilize the NDA process put in place by the first Readiness activities. This natural progression is leading towards greater Government ownership and more equitable partnerships with potential accredited entities. NDA strengthening has been successfully completed in the past, and so this proposal focuses exclusively on direct access. An in-depth assessment of Vanuatu’s ability to meet GCF accreditation standards (Vanuatu Climate Change Finance Review 2017) was recently conducted. In areas of institutional capacity, fiduciary capacity, Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) and gender highlight important gaps to be addressed and work to be undertaken. Given the limited human resource capacity in country to follow-up on and implement these improvements, this Readiness proposal seeks to expand the human resource capacity of the Government as it gears towards DAE accreditation. This GCF Readiness support will enable Vanuatu to dedicate the requisite human resources through specific and targeted long-term consultancy assignments, to directly deliver upon the project outcomes in the MFEM, MCCA and PMO towards accelerating an application for GCF accreditation and succeeding with the Financial Management Capacity Assessment and associated institutional policies and guidelines. The additional skills will also enable identification of an appropriate first project for direct access.