Green Climate Fund: Timely Action Needs Early Pledges

The present discussion paper describes why early pledges for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) are important for early action – hence a timely start of project support – of the GCF. Of course, each donor country decides for itself when it perceives a fund to be ready and sufficiently trustworthy for funding and each donor country will probably have its own set of items it wants to see addressed before it can provide pledges. Nevertheless, this short discussion paper looks at the interdependence between the need for early pledging for the GCF and the necessary progress of the GCF operationalization process.

After describing experiences from the Climate Investment Funds, the Adaptation Fund as well as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in regard to when pledges were first made to these funds and which governance decisions had already been taken at this point of time, some lessons learned are being drawn for the GCF. After a description of why early pledges are needed, the paper finally illustrates which governance issues might be of special importance for raising the necessary trust among donor countries, so that they perceive the fund sufficiently trustworthy to provide early pledges.