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As Green Climate Fund and World Bank sign framework agreement, concerns about Bank’s role linger

4 April 2019

In February, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and World Bank’s new framework agreement – known as its Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) – came into force. The AMA, which was first announced at the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) in 2017 (see Observer Spring 2018), sets the conditions for cooperation between the two organisations. Under the new framework agreement, nine projects co-financed by the Bank and GCF and approved by the latter’s Board will now go forward – starting with a co-financed project in the Marshall Islands designed to support coastal resilience.

Liane Schalatek, of US-based civil society organisation (CSO) Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung North America, who is an active CSO observer for developed countries at the GCF, said of the AMA: “[There is a question of] whether the projects that the World Bank has presented so far to the GCF are really all projects that should have been funded by the GCF, or whether in some instances the World Bank is asking GCF to come in with concessional money to fund ‘climate proofing’ of some Bank projects that they should be doing themselves.”

In October, the GCF’s Board approved the “continuation of the World Bank as GCF trustee for a multi-year, renewable period of time,” according to Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung North America, ending previous speculation about whether the Bank would continue as GCF trustee (see Observer Spring 2018).