The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Regional Dialogue for Africa took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with a call to redefine Africa’s readiness and overall capacity for GCF programming.

The dialogue was aimed at taking stock of the results, opportunities and challenges of GCF programming in Africa as well as the outcome reforms undertaken to deliver on the GCF updated strategy, enhance effectiveness and deliver climate investment more efficiently and impactfully, especially implementation of a new regionalized operations model.

The regional dialogue, that took place form 29th September to 1st October, served as a platform for GCF’s stakeholders to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, share experiences and best practices, and celebrate impactful successes. The meeting is featuring a series of strategic and technical discussions as well as workshops focused on specific topics to support the acceleration of programming and delivering of impacts in Africa.

Speaking during the opening session, Ambassador Seyni Nafo, GCF Co-Chair highlighted the need for Africa’s continued capacity building efforts.

“The GCF has more than 150 entities approved for accreditation and 100 of these are based or operate in Africa. But when you look at the amount of money mobilized, the international accredited entities representing 35% of the entities, have mobilized 85% of the resources, two to three times more money than the combined 100 entities in developing countries. This is where we have home work as a continent; we need to continue supporting capacity building efforts. We need to think how to ensure that African entities are the ones driving the GCF. This is a long-standing issue that we need to solve. We all have a collective responsibility to redefine Africa’s capacity narrative,” said Ambassador Nafo, who is also Coordinator of the Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI).

Interestingly, the GCF has an in-built programme that supports country-driven initiatives to strengthen their institutional capacities, governance mechanisms, planning and programming frameworks towards a transformational long-term climate action agenda.

Readiness support is provided to countries through National Designated Authorities (NDAs) and/or focal points (FPs). Readiness funding can also be deployed to strengthen Direct Access Entities, and all developing country Parties to the UNFCCC can access the Readiness Programme.

However, Ambassador Nafo believes Africa has not taken advantage of, and utilized this opportunity to strengthen its capacities as well as supporting certain climate initiatives that are within the realm of the readiness funding envelope.

“I believe we have not done a good job in maximizing the readiness envelope. If you think about it, this is seven million dollars in four years, and that should be enough for every African country to do your NDC, your NAP, and translate your NDC and NAP into an investment portfolio, as well as contract all the expertise you need for support. You don’t have to start looking for resources elsewhere to undertake such works. I think we have more work to do to change the situation,” concluded Ambassador Nafo, equally pointing out the importance of continued reforms by the GCF to ease access.

The GCF is the world’s largest multilateral climate fund, and plays a central role in the climate and development finance system.

It serves as the financial centerpiece of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, established with strong political support from both developed and developing countries.

The GCF convenes a global network of over 150 accredited public and private sector entities to achieve reach and scale. This includes over 100 Direct Access Entities (DAEs) - regional, national, and local organizations that work directly with GCF.

While it has to date financed US$18 billion in climate action, and mobilizing an additional US$46.5 billion in co-financing from public and private sources, it’s 15-year existence has been plagued by access bureaucracy.

It is for this reason that the fund embarked on reforms to deliver its mandate more effectively and efficiently. Over the last eighteen months, GCF has embraced whole-of-Fund reforms, re-engineering its institutional structure and its systems to be as responsive as possible to countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and to ensure value for money for funders.

Some of the reforms include; increased speed (reduced disbursement time); improved accreditation process, aimed at processing accreditation applications within 9 months; country impact through regional structure and presence; and stronger results framework aimed at enhancing the results and impact data, insights and reporting processes.

In its regional presence programme, last week, the fund announced that 47 countries had expressed interest to the call for proposals to host a regional presence of the GCF.

Executive Director, Mafalda Duarte said the significant response validates the Fund’s vision to be closer to the countries it serves and deliver more financial support at scale, strengthen national institutions, and build more partnerships for impact.

“If climate action is local action—which it is—then GCF needs to be local too to ensure greatest impact. GCF needs to be not only a source of finance but as a partner working on the ground. Establishing regional presence is a historic step for the Fund, that will bring our world-class specialists closer to those who we serve.”

Since 2013, the GCF has been solely headquartered in Songdo, Republic of Korea. The GCF Board strategically decided to establish a regional presence at its forty-first meeting (B.41) in February 2025 and adopted the terms of reference for selecting host countries/cities at its forty-second meeting (B.42) in July 2025.