DOHA, Qatar—The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) today launches a Climate Finance Advisory Service for developing countries at the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, Qatar. The Service will enable negotiators, policy makers and advisors in developing countries to access the tailored information and guidance they need to participate effectively in global climate finance negotiations. CDKN and a global alliance led by the NGO Germanwatch will provide experts to staff the Service.

Climate negotiators from developing countries face a tough negotiating environment in the Green Climate Fund and other, ongoing, finance discussions in the UNFCCC. They normally lack the resources and technical capacity to play on a ‘level playing field’ with more affluent nations.

The Service will provide a rapid response for complex, time-critical questions faced by developing countries during the Green Climate Fund Board meetings and UNFCCC negotiations, and between sessions. Countries will submit specific questions to the expert team, and the answers will be published on the online platform www.cdkn.org/cfas, to benefit a larger audience of developing country users. More detailed briefings and research will also be provided.

CDKN's Head of Negotiations support explains more:

The Service will complement a similar service that CDKN provides to the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries on legal issues: in the past year, lawyers have answered over 100 queries from climate-vulnerable nations in the UNFCCC talks, thanks to CDKN’s support to the Legal Response Initiative.

“Climate finance is one of CDKN’s four strategic themes. The Climate Finance Advisory Service provides an opportunity for us to ensure that a broad range of developing countries are able to benefit from advice on climate finance, to encourage learning across our projects and to share that learning as widely as possible," said Dan Hamza-Goodacre, CDKN’s Head of Negotiations Support.

“Developing countries can find it difficult to navigate the complex proposals for public and private sources of finance and to establish how their needs fit into the big picture,” said Ari Huhtala, CDKN’s Director of Policy and Programmes. “This service will provide guidance on this complex landscape. It could play a key role in helping donor nations disburse climate finance responsibly – and assist the neediest countries to access it.”

At the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December 2009, Parties agreed to mobilise US$100 billion per year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020. Developed countries’ financial commitments make up only a slither of that overall commitment so far but the Green Climate Fund has been established under UNFCCC auspices to channel a significant part of those funds in a coordinated way.

“The poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries have a significant stake in the way the Green Climate Fund’s structure and rules are established,” said Mr Huhtala. “Questions about this are likely to figure heavily in CDKN’s work programme in the opening year of the Climate Finance Advisory Service.”

For more information

Please visit www.cdkn.org/cfas

Email:

Technical queries:  Jack Steege, CDKN

Media queries:  Mairi Dupar, CDKN

Editor’s note

CDKN supports developing country decision-makers in designing and delivering climate compatible development. It does so by combining research, advisory services and knowledge-sharing in support of locally owned and managed policy processes. CDKN is an alliance of private and non-governmental organisations operating across Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, with a global hub in London, UK: PwC, Overseas Development Institute, LEAD International , LEAD Pakistan, SouthSouthNorth, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano and INTRAC.