23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

Publications

The Green Climate Fund issues a range of publications for our direct and indirect stakeholders on a diversity of issues – for the
general public to industry experts. Stay in tune with our mission and activities around the planet with the issues that speak to
you.

Featured publications

GCF Strategic Plan 2024-2027 overview GCF: Catalysing finance for clim
solutions
This overview provides a brief synopsis of GCF’s
Strategic Plan. For more details about the Strategic The window to address the climate cr
Plan, visit here. shrinking. Floods, droughts, heatwaves
storms, and wildfires are breaking reco
Read more alarming frequency around the world.

Read more

F I LT E R

Search

Programming guidelines for the Simplified Approval Process

December 2023
The SAP Programming Guideline, a vital element of our extensive GCF documentation
suite, equips stakeholders with essential insights into the SAP's key objectives, policies,
and a range of tools. Grounded in the GCF Investment Framework, the guideline
delineates the Investment Criteria and the Fund's impact goals. It aids project
developers in determining whether the SAP is their optimal funding avenue, guiding
them through the nuances of proposal preparation and providing detailed steps for...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 1/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

Reporting guidelines for the Simplified Approval Process (SAP)

December 2023
This guideline document responds to decision B.32/05 made by the GCF Board to
develop guidance and templates for the Accredited Entities (AEs) on building a results-
based monitoring and reporting system, based on the GCF integrated results
management framework to simplify the annual performance report requirements and
templates and accelerate disbursements. In particular, the primary aim of this guideline
is to assist AEs in accurately and efficiently completing the SAP Annual Performance...

GCF Strategic Plan 2024-2027 overview

December 2023
Through decision B.36/13 the GCF Board adopted GCF’s Strategic Plan 2024-2027,
setting out GCF’s major programming directions for GCF-2, capturing the ambition to
deliver both strengthened climate results and greater access for developing countries
as the world heads into a critical decade for global climate action. The Strategic Plan
for 2024-2027 articulates how GCF will significantly enhance its support to developing
countries, improve access, and strive to deliver the highest levels of...

GCF-SAP CREWS Scaling-up Framework for early warning

December 2023
The Scaling-up Framework was the result of a collaborative effort to develop scale-up
financing modalities for early warning systems (EWS). It follows decisions, in 2022, by
the Boards of both the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Climate Risk and Early
Warning Systems (CREWS). The intention of the scaling-up Framework is to fast-track
access to the GCF finance through its Simplified Approval Process (SAP) for countries
with ongoing or recently completed CREWS projects. This Framework is...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 2/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

Readiness Result Management Framework: Results handbook

November 2023
The Readiness Result Management Framework (RRMF) is the primary tool to guide
Readiness results-based interventions, and through which GCF tracks and measures
the results of the Readiness Programme in a consistent and coherent manner. The
purpose of the RRMF Results handbook is to provide targeted users, National
Designated Authorities, Delivery Partners and the GCF Secretariat, with guidance on the
application of GCF’s RRMF as well as to assist in undertaking their respective roles and...

Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH) risk assessment guideline

June 2023
This tool is a guide to help the Secretariat, AEs and executing entities (EEs) understand
SEAH and be able to assess the SEAH risks related to proposed projects in order to
predict, mitigate and ideally prevent SEAH from occurring. The tool applies to all GCF-
financed activities and to both public and private sector entities. It may be updated by
GCF periodically, as required, in order to further incorporate good practice and lessons
learned, and to mirror the evolution of GCF’s ESS standards.

GCF-1 Progress Report

May 2023
Over the past four years, in the face of COVID-19, political and economic crises, the
need for urgent climate action has become ever clearer. The GCF-1 Progress Report,
available in both web and pdf versions, highlights the extensive progress made by GCF
in delivering high-impact climate finance during the 2020-2023 period (referred to as
‘GCF-1’), ahead of its replenishment for the next four years. The GCF-1 Progress Report
records the significant expansion of the Fund during this period,...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 3/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

Readiness and Preparatory Support guidebook: A practical guide on how to

prepare readiness proposals and how to implement readiness grants

April 2023
GCF’s Readiness Programme is a crucial element of the Fund’s approach to ensuring
country ownership and facilitating increased flows of climate finance. Developing
countries can access Readiness resources to support capacity building, strategic
frameworks, National Adaptation Plans and Adaptation Planning processes, the
development of project and programme pipelines, and knowledge sharing and
learning. The revised GCF Readiness Guidebook provides a complete overview of the
Readiness Programme,...

GCF: Catalysing finance for climate solutions

April 2023
The window to address the climate crisis is rapidly shrinking. Floods, droughts,
heatwaves, extreme storms, and wildfires are breaking records with alarming frequency
around the world. Failure to limit global warming to the Paris Agreement targets will
result in even more devastating consequences for people and planet, with vulnerable
populations suffering the most. Ambitious action is urgently needed both to reduce
emissions and to adapt to the changing climate in developing countries. A...

Making blended finance work for nature-based solutions

March 2023
There is global recognition that biodiversity loss is just as urgent as the climate crisis
and that they are intimately linked. One effective solution is to use nature-based
solutions which can address the climate crisis, land degradation and biodiversity loss, as
well as contribute to addressing a variety of social issues, such as water scarcity
management and poverty alleviation. Nature-based solutions have enormous potential,
however they are greatly underfunded. Thus, there is an urgent...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 4/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

SAP Technical Guidelines: Ecosystems and ecosystem services

February 2023
The publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals. The
thematic area of ecosystems and ecosystem services encompasses all natural
environments and the productive uses that are based on them. This can range from
environments not directly impacted by human activities – for example, remote
rainforests, alpine regions or coral reefs – to environments that are intensively
managed – such as agricultural areas or managed forests for timber production. Given
that there...

SAP Technical Guidelines: Transport

February 2023
The publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals.
Although there is no one standard definition of the transport sector, it can be described
as including all kinds of transportation, such as road, rail and maritime transport, and
aviation. Please note that the English document is currently the most up to date version
of the technical guideline. The French and Spanish translations are being reviewed and
will be soon available for download.

SAP Technical Guidelines: Cities and climate change

February 2023
Traditionally, cities are defined as large human settlements, with no one standardized
definition applied internationally. Frequently, national governments have criteria they
use to define urban areas. These criteria can vary to include aspects such as
administrative boundaries, living conditions or population density. Another approach is
what is termed “urban agglomeration”, which considers the extent of an urban area, or
sometimes, that of a built-up area, to identify a city’s boundaries....

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 5/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

SAP Technical Guidelines: Forests and land use

February 2023
This publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals. The
thematic area of forest and land use encompasses forests and other multiple land-
cover types where forests are a prominent component of the landscape. This can range
from natural forests, where ecosystems are not directly impacted by human activities
(e.g. primary forests) to more intensively transformed landscapes – such as secondary
growth forests, degraded forest landscapes, agroforestry systems and trees...

SAP Technical Guidelines: REDD+

February 2023
This guidance has been developed to support GCF accredited entities (AEs) and
national designated authorities (NDAs) in their preparation of concept notes and
funding proposals under the simplified approval process for REDD+ (REDD+ SAP).
Please note that the English document is currently the most up to date version of the
technical guideline. The French and Spanish translations are being reviewed and will be
soon available for download.

SAP Technical Guidelines: Energy efficiency for industry and appliances

February 2023
This publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals.
Energy efficiency (EE) is the process of reducing the energy consumption of
infrastructure, facilities, machines, devices, products, services, business processes,
activities and transport. It can be thought of as the first fuel of a sustainable world and
as such it has a key role in ensuring cost-effective energy transitions. Please note that
the English document is currently the most up to date version of the...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 6/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

SAP Technical Guidelines: Renewable energy

February 2023
This publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals.
Renewable energy (RE) is produced using natural resources that are constantly
replaced within the human timescale. Just as there are many natural sources of energy,
there are many technologies that can help to harness RE sources. Solar photovoltaic
(PV) is the most well- known, wind power is the most widespread and hydropower is
one of the oldest. Other RE technologies harness geothermal energy, solid waste or...

SAP Technical Guidelines: Water security

February 2023
This publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of simplified approval
process (SAP) proposals for water security projects. GCF defines the water sector as
encompassing surface freshwater resources and groundwater, but not oceans. Since
the water sector is interlinked with several other sectors, such as agriculture and
ecosystems, it is necessary to delineate its scope. Thus, the emphasis in this technical
guidance a is on four sub-sectors: Integrated water resources...

SAP Technical Guidelines: Agriculture and food security

February 2023
This publication provides technical guidance for the preparation of SAP proposals. The
agriculture thematic area encompasses agricultural production, land-use change
caused by agricultural production and the food system in general. Agricultural
production covers crop production and livestock. In addition to agricultural production
the food system includes all steps from “farm to fork”: post-harvest handling, storage,
manufacturing, processing, transport, retailing, consumption and food loss and...

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 7/8
23/04/2024, 12:36 Publications | Green Climate Fund

Sectoral guides' summaries

December 2022
This document provides a summary of the ten GCF sectoral guides. Each guide covers
one of the sectors in which GCF operates in detail, outlining the global context for that
sector, two to four paradigm shifting pathways that have potential for greatest impact,
information on how these pathways can be financed, examples of cases that illustrate
the potential in the sector, and the GCF investment criteria. The summaries focus on
the paradigm shifting pathways and the role of GCF in financing...

1 2 3 4 5 › »

https://www.greenclimate.fund/publications 8/8