The synthesis report summarizes the findings of a multilevel analysis of synergies and complementarities between funding streams from different multilateral climate finance mechanisms, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), as well as interactions and synergies with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF). It is based on four case studies, a portfolio analysis and additional stakeholder interviews. These describe mechanisms and situations where synergies between climate finance mechanisms and the initiatives they have funded arise. The synthesis report presents drivers of and challenges to such synergies and indicates areas for optimization. The case studies document different types of synergies in the renewable energy sector development in Kazakhstan, adaptation and resilience work in Cambodia and Namibia, and sustainable energy in Mongolia.
The report was using the case studies – which have not been designed as evaluations, but rather as illustrations – to understand whether and how funds from different climate finance mechanisms can result in more or higher quality impacts than any individual financial mechanism. The cases illustrate that there are options to combine funding in intelligent manners, and thus achieve impacts faster and more sustainably. Observed synergies meant that interventions could be more impactful, more efficient, and exceed certain thresholds that are necessary to achieve results at scale, and that would not be reached without the confluence of different funding stream, each of which would have been too limited for that.
The study found that synergies are favored by a strong country coordination, allowing projects to build on each other, and facilitating cross-learning. For both, local champions play a very important role. Country investment planning (as piloted by the CIFs) is perceived as very helpful to align activities of different funding channels and can be expanded to coordination between different funding sources. The availability of funding of different quality, from different sources and through different channels can also be crucial for continuity of local climate action. Leveraging synergies is often met with challenges in institutional, structural and administrative dimensions, but can help use climate funding more efficiently.
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