Briefing on the 24th meeting of the Adaption Fund Board

From 9-10 October 2014, the 24rd meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB), the operating body of the Adaptation Fund established under the Kyoto Protocol, will take place in Bonn, Germany. In the two days prior to the meeting, the Board members will convene in their respective committees: the Ethics and Finance Committee (EFC) and the Project and Programme Review Committee (PPRC).

As usual, the AFB meeting will start with deliberations by the Board on the recommendations of the Accreditation Panel. The Accreditation Panel (AP) is in charge of the accreditation of National (NIE), Multilateral (MIE) and Regional Implementing Entities (RIE). However, for the present meeting, the AP was not in a position to recommend the accreditation of new implementing entities. Rather, the AP recommends not accrediting RIE007 since the applicant has not provided the required information to allow a meaningful assessment of the application, despite regular follow up.

Nevertheless, the intersessional period resulted in the accreditation of the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) which increased the number of NIEs to 17, joint by 11 MIEs and 4 RIEs for a total of now 32 implementing entities.

Following the report by the AP, the AFB will have to decide, based on the recommendations of the PPRC, on the potential approval and endorsement of thirteen projects and concepts, all submitted for this meeting. The thirteen proposals have been submitted to the Secretariat by accredited IEs, with the total requested funding amounting to US$ 70,694,621. Four of the proposals were concepts, with a total requested funding of US$ 25,617,203 and nine were fully-developed proposals, with a total requested funding of US$ 45,077,418. Remarkably, out of the 13 projects, 12 were submitted by NIEs, while for the first time, no new MIE submissions were received.

Furthermore, the Board will engage in the discussion related to the status of the pipeline. As four MIE proposals still remain in MIE pipeline of approved projects and programmes, the Board will discuss options to fund the pipeline, as was the case at the last AFB meeting. The discussion here could become a political one, as Board members will be invited to explore different funding options as proposed by the AF Secretariat in the corresponding document.

This briefing paper will highlight and summarise the key issues on the agenda of the 24th meeting of the AFB, and outline some further actions to be taken by the Board.