GREEN CLIMATE FUND RIGHTS AND EQUITY
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» what are green climate fund
annually on how well they meet safeguards. The Fund’s Secretariat will undertake occasional spot-checks to ensure that accredited entities are meeting their requirements.
(gcf) environmental and social safeguards?
The Secretariat’s efforts are anticipated to be insufficient due to lack of staff resources and other constraints, so citizens in countries with GCF-funded activities could play an important monitoring role in raising red flags when safeguard requirements are not met.
The safeguard policies of financial institutions are supposed to ensure that they do not fund activities that harm people and the environment. The GCF is using the International Finance Corporation’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards on an interim basis. These provide benchmarks covering eight topics: 1) the assessment and management of environmental and social risks and impacts; 2) labour and working conditions; 3) resource efficiency and pollution prevention; 4) community health, safety, and security; 5) land acquisition and involuntary resettlement; 6) biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of living natural resources; 7) Indigenous Peoples; and 8) cultural heritage. The GCF will develop its own “best practice” safeguards by 2018 through a multi-stakeholder process.
If GCF-funded activities cause problems, affected communities should inform the GCF Secretariat and the country’s National Designated Authority (NDA) or focal point. In many cases, the accredited entity implementing the programme will also have some reporting procedure, so they should also be formally notified. If problems persist, affected communities can file a complaint with the Fund's Independent Redress Mechanism (IRM).
» how does the independent redress mechanism help communities?
» who applies gcf safeguards?
The IRM offers people who are negatively affected by GCFfinanced activities an opportunity to have their complaints addressed. The IRM will evaluate the complaint, assessing its allegations of failure to implement environmental and social safeguards or other Fund policies, in order to decide whether to take the grievance process further. Eligible complaints will first be dealt with by informal mediation. If that process fails, the IRM can recommend that the Board take further actions.
GCF “accredited entities” (public institutions and agencies, development or commercial banks, and others) are in charge of applying the safeguards. These entities are accredited according to the level of potential environmental and social risks and the size and financial complexity of the projects and programmes that they are supposed to be able to manage. An Accreditation Panel helps determine accredited entities’ capacity to manage and oversee different levels of project risk, and the GCF Board ultimately approves accreditation.
» what happens if the
» how are indigenous peoples represented at the fund?
Unlike many other UN processes, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Indigenous Peoples are not recognised at the GCF as a constituency with a voice of their own. Their concerns and interests are instead supposed to be represented by two “active observers” who
safeguards are not met? The GCF has established a monitoring and accountability framework, which requires accredited entities to self-report
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