19 June 2023, Honiara - Solomon Islands’ capacity to access more funds from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), to strengthen the country’s response to climate change impacts, has been enhanced thanks to support from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment (SPREP) through the Pacific Climate Change Centre (PCCC).
On 9 June 2023, the Government of the Solomon Islands and PCCC launched the GCF Country Programme and related documents at the Heritage Park in Honiara.
The launch was attended by officials from the Government of Solomon Islands, representatives of non-government organisations (NGOs) and the private sector, representatives of the Development Bank of Solomon Islands, Central Bank of Solomon Islands, Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), and the Solomon Islands National University.
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Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM), Mr Chanel Iroi, Deputy Secretary Technical, expressed his appreciation to SPREP, PCCC and GCF for their ongoing support to the Solomon Islands on the readiness support.
He also acknowledged all stakeholders who supported and participated in the formulation of the country programme and related documents including the Solomon Island GCF No Objection Procedure, Solomon Island GCF Stakeholder Engagement Strategy, Solomon Island GCF Communication Plan, Private Sector Mapping and Analysis Report and the Gap Analysis, Training Needs Assessment and Training Implementation Plan.
The launch was an important milestone in the partnership between SPREP, PCCC, the GCF and the Government of Solomon Islands in the implementation of the first GCF readiness support project for the Solomon Islands. The GCF Readiness project is designed to enhance the country’s readiness to access more funds from the GCF.
The readiness support broadly strengthens the country’s capacity through the National Delegated Authority’s (NDA) and focal points to ensure roles and responsibilities to the GCF and to stakeholders are operational and effective.
It also included strengthening stakeholders’ engagement in consultative processes for country programming and climate finance activities, strengthening strategies for a national entity to gain direct access accreditation with the GCF and private sector assessment to engage with the GCF.
Ms ‘Ofa Kaisamy, Manager of the PCCC emphasised that SPREP being an accredited entity (AE) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) amplified SPREP’s mandate to continue to serve and work in partnership with Pacific countries to address the impacts of climate change. She said the country programme provides key priority project ideas that the GCF will support in terms of investment over the coming funding cycle.
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Further, the ‘No objection procedure’ and stakeholder engagement plan are critical in the project development design processes and will enhance the role of the NDA to formulate project ideas that will be further developed into full project proposals.
The Manager of the PCCC acknowledged the Government of New Zealand (MFAT) for the funding support to enable the PCCC to further support the Government of Solomon Islands.
The launching signifies the success of the partnership being forged between SPREP, the PCCC and the Government of Solomon Islands in collaboration with the GCF to continue to provide support for readiness projects for Solomon Islands and also broadly in the Pacific region. The PCCC is supporting the readiness project PMU costs for the project extension as part of its capacity building function and providing in-country assistance. Climate finance is a key area of intervention across the four functions of the PCCC on knowledge brokerage, applied research, capacity building and innovation to support PICTs building climate resilience.
The GCF readiness support is part of the GCF programming to support countries to strengthen the enabling environment and related institutional, systemic and fiduciary capacity to access climate finance to address their climate change priorities. The Solomon Island Readiness 1 project has been implemented by MECDM and SPREP since 2021 and the project is expected to be completed in August 2023.
For information on SPREP GCF readiness support please email the SPREP Climate Finance Readiness Advisor, Mr Fred Siho Patison, email [email protected]