Accessing climate finance is a key priority to enable the transition toward a low-emission climate-resilient society. With a field presence in more than 160 countries and a UN coordinating mandate, UNDP is uniquely placed to support countries to leverage various financing options to ensure that their national development is effective and sustainable.

Assisting LDCs access climate finance is particularly important not only because they are homes to the most vulnerable populations affected by climate change impacts, but also because, through the effective utilisation of climate funds, there are several opportunities to ensure that the development path they embark on is a resilient and sustainable one. Currently, UNDP is supporting 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in accessing multiple sources of funds.

UNDP supports countries in mobilizing financing through the Adaptation Fund as a Multilateral Implementing Agency, and through the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), in three funds: Least Developed Country Fund, (LDCF), Special Climate Change Fund, (or SCCF), and the Strategic Priority Fund of the GEF Trust Fund (SPA). For example, there are 34 LDCs accessing LDCF funds, with 47 LDCF projects (31 currently under implementation and an additional 16 in the planning stage) and LDCF funding totalling $258,668,180.

Figure 1: UNDP Support to Access Climate Change Finance in LDCs

Grant resources are also being mobilized from multilateral and bilateral sources including the Global Environment Facility, and the Governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Norway and Spain, among others. These resources are complemented with co-financing leveraged by UNDP from various sources in support of baseline development needs.

With our national and regional partners, UNDP continues to work to develop, combine and sequence a range of innovative institutional, regulatory and market-based instruments to promote direct investments for strategic interventions in climate-resilient development, including the structuring of and access to additional sources of finance.

For more details refer to the recent report: UNDP support to LDCs to Access Finance for Adaptation Basic Facts and Figures - November 2013.