The Fifth meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance was held in Bonn, Germany from August 27 to 30 2013. For four days, the discussions were mainly centred on the arrangements between COP-GCF; the draft consolidated guidelines for the fifth review of the financial mechanism; the MRV of support and biennial assessments and overview of financial flows; the forum of the SCF and the draft guidance to the operating entities of the financial mechanism. Before getting deeply into the agenda items listed above, climate finance stakeholders such as the OECD, the European Development Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ODI and the GEF Evaluation Office made presentations on MRV of climate finance and climate finance monitoring and tracking. Those presentations pointed out the lack of common methodology and accessibility of reliable data for an effective climate finance tracking. Thus, the co-chairs requested the SCF members to take all those information into account in their work of the following days.

The first agenda item adopted the third day after controversial discussions was the arrangements between the COP and the GCF, which was also the main point of divergence during the previous SCF meeting. Regarding, the draft consolidated guidelines for the fifth review of the financial mechanism, SCF members could not agree on the scope, input and methodology but provided the co-chairs with their views and comments, which were then, with help from the Secretariat incorporated into a co-chairs text for further consideration, with the view to be concluded before the COP. The same applies to work conducted by the working groups focusing on MRV respectively the Biennial Assessment of climate finance flows, and the Second Forum of the SCF, which although achieving substantial progress could not finalize their work in time during the meeting.

In terms of upcoming meetings, three sessions were scheduled for March, June, and September 2014, with the option to hold the June meeting back-to-back with the planned Second Forum of the SCF, presumably taking place in Montego Bay, Jamaica in cooperation with the CIF Partnership Forum, hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank.

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