Strengthening Gender Responsiveness of the Green Climate Fund Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Programme in Namibia

Scholars of gender and climate change argue that gender-blind climate change actions could exacerbate existing inequalities and undermine sustained climate change adaptation actions. For this reason, since 2017, the Green Climate Fund placed gender among its key programming prerequisites, making it the first multilateral climate fund to do so worldwide. However, to date, no lessons to inform planned gender-responsive ecosystem-based interventions in Namibia have been drawn from community-based natural resource management. Thus, this paper aims to share key lessons regarding the way in which gender assessment is useful in enhancing equity in an ecosystem-based adaptation programme for the Green Climate Fund. To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews and group discussions in the 14 rural regions of Namibia with 151 participants from 107 community-based natural resource management organisations (73.5:26.5; male:female ratio). The results identified gender imbalances in leadership and decision-making due to intersecting historic inequalities, ethnicity and geography, as well as other socio-cultural factors in local community-based natural resource management institutions. We also identified income disparities and unequal opportunities to diversify livelihoods, gendered differentiated impacts of climate change and meaningful participation in public forums. Overall, the assessment indicates that considering gender analysis at the initiation of a community-based climate change adaptation project is crucial for achieving resilience to climate change, closing the gender gap, building capacity to increase equity and empowering women in resource-dependent environments in Namibia and Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

Mobilizing private adaptation finance: lessons learned from the Green Climate Fund

The mobilization of effective private sector engagement is considered to be critical to address the adaptation challenge, but literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult. In the context of international climate finance, the focus has been on mobilizing private finance for adaptation and in addressing barriers that prevent investments from materializing. In contrast, this article identifies options to engage the private sector in adaptation beyond finance and focuses on market imperfections instead of barriers. This moves the focus away from simply mobilizing more private adaptation finance towards identifying market forces that innovate, engage, and direct investments towards adaptation. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its portfolio of 74 adaptation projects serve as a case study. Two of these projects are categorized as private sector projects and an additional nine mobilize private co-finance or non-financial private contributions. Beyond these two indicators, we demonstrate that an additional 60 projects engage the private sector in other ways, thus indicating the important broader role of the private sector in adaptation. Furthermore, our ordinal regression demonstrates that by addressing the market imperfections of positive externalities, imperfect financial markets, and incomplete and/or asymmetric information, all have a significant positive effect on private sector engagement in the GCF’s adaptation portfolio. Both findings indicate that there is a large potential for the GCF—and other climate finance providers—to increase private sector engagement in adaptation. It must be noted, however, that the mobilization of private sector engagement in adaptation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The main aim should be to adapt society as a whole in an efficient manner, including the most vulnerable groups and people.

ВПЛИВ АНТИДЕМПІНГОВИХ ТА ЗАХИСНИХ ЗАХОДІВ НА КОНКУРЕНТОСПРОМОЖНІСТЬ МЕТАЛУРГІЙНИХ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ

У статті акцентовано на значимості конкурентоспроможності у забезпеченні життєдіяльності підприємств. Здійснено порівняльний аналіз змін позицій України у рейтингу TOП-10 країн-лідерів на світовому ринку металопродукції. Обгрунтовано, що визначальним чинниками впливу на конкурентоспроможність експортнозалежних підприємств є антидемпінгові та захисні заходи на світовому ринку. Здійснено комплексне дослідження впливу антидемпінгових та захисних заходів на конкурентоспроможність металургійних підприємств в умовах підвищення ЄС амбіційності до скорочення вуглецевого сліду виробництва металопродукції. Поглиблено аналітичний апарат з оцінювання впливу антидемпінгових та захисних заходів на конкурентоспроможність металургійних підприємств. Акцентовано, що Україна разом з усім цивілізованим світом прийняла на себе зобов'язання з імплементації європейського екологічного законодавства, приєдналася до Зеленого кліматичного фонду Green Climate Fund та визначила Національний вуглецевий внесок відповідно до вимог Паризької кліматичної угоди. Наголошено на очікуваному введенні в найближчі роки Європейскою комісією Carbon border adjustment. Встановлено пагубний вплив на конкурентоспроможність металургійних підприємств запровадження ЄС екологічного мита - Carbon border adjustment. Здійснено компаративний аналіз ефекту запровадження Carbon border adjustment для ЄС та України. Розглянуто запропоновані Європейською комісією формати Carbon border adjustment. Обгрунтовано, що запровадження Carbon border adjustment не прискорюватиме, а гальмуватиме процес декарбонізації, оскільки обсяги капітальних інвестицій виробників сталі можуть суттєво скоротитись, що в підсумку і призведе до втрати їх конкурентоспроможності. Наголошено, що запровадження Carbon border adjustment не обмежиться секторіальними наслідками, а й матиме суттєвий вплив на економіку України в цілому. Визначено арсенал дієвих заходів щодо його пом’якшення, запровадження якого у вітчизняній практиці дозволить приймати ефективні та оптимальні управлінські рішення щодо збереження позицій вітчизняних металургійних підприємств у ТОП-10 країн-лідерів з виробництва металопродукції.

Mobilising Private Adaptation Finance: Lessons Learned From the Green Climate Fund

The mobilisation of private sector engagement is considered to be critical to address the adaptation challenge, but literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult. In the context of international climate finance, the focus has been on mobilising private finance for adaptation, and in addressing barriers that prevent investments from materialising. In contrast, this article identifies options to engage the private sector in adaptation beyond finance and focuses on market imperfections instead of barriers. This moves the focus away from simply mobilising more private adaptation finance towards identifying market forces that innovate, engage and direct investments towards adaptation. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its portfolio of 67 adaptation projects serve as a case study. We demonstrate that 79 per cent of the GCF projects engage the private sector in ways that go beyond co-finance or project development, thus indicating the important broader role of the private sector in adaptation. Furthermore, our ordinal regression demonstrates that addressing the market imperfections of positive externalities, imperfect capital markets, and incomplete and/or asymmetric information all have a significant positive effect on private sector engagement in the GCF’s adaptation portfolio. Both findings indicate that there is a big potential for the GCF - and other climate finance providers - to increase private sector engagement in adaptation. However, the mobilisation of private sector engagement in adaptation is a means to this end, not an end in itself. The main aim should be to adapt society as a whole in an efficient manner, including the most vulnerable people.

Climate Change

Climate change caused by the anthropogenic accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the air is affecting all life on earth and bearing upon human undertakings thereby representing the most complicated challenge of our time. Across cultures, the impacts of climate change affect women and men differently. Although women being disproportionately impacted by climate change, they play a key role in adapting and mitigating climate change. This is why UN-Climate Change negotiations have incorporated gender action plans to guarantee equal room and resources for women and men for decision-making and action on climate change at all levels. For instance, a gender-sensitive approach to climate finance is increasingly being used to better tackle future gender inequalities as seen in the green climate fund scenario. The purpose of this paper is to encourage awareness of importance of gender and cultural diversity inclusion in climate change actions.

Accountability at the Green Climate Fund: Taking a Look at the Independent Redress Mechanism

Given the pivotal role of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in climate finance and the importance of ensuring that it is accountable to its stakeholders, this analysis takes a look at the GCF’s recently created Independent Redress Mechanism (IRM) – a grievance redress mechanism that entertains complaints from people affected or potentially affected by a GCF project and from developing countries that have been denied funding by the GCF Board. The analysis provides an overview of the tools and methods that the IRM uses to hold the GCF to account and explores some of its procedural innovations. It argues that although the IRM lacks the power to issue binding decisions, it adequately makes up for this through the use of soft power.