Six countries bid to host UN Green Climate Fund

Namibia is the only African country out of the six countries that have expressed interest in hosting the UN Green Climate Fund. The others are Germany, Poland, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and Mexico. The fund is to be run under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established in December 2011 at Durban, South Africa, by the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCC with the purpose of making a significant and ambitious contribution to the global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change.

  

The GCF will promote a model towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Fund will provide simplified and improved access to climate change funding to developing countries, including direct access, basing its activities on a country-driven approach.

In a press statement the UNFCC announced that the Interim Secretariat of the Green Climate Fund received only 6 bidders that showed interest to host GCF and its board. The criteria for submission of the bids included the country’s ability to recognize juridical personality and legal capacity to the Fund, the ability to provide the necessary privileges and immunities to the Fund, and financial arrangements, administrative and logistical support to the Fund. 

The GCF Board will consider these expressions of interest and initiate a process for the selection of the host country when it meets for the first time at end of May this year. The board will later present its choice country present it to the eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP18) of the UNFCC for endorsement at its next session to take place in Doha, Qatar, from 26 November to 7 December 2012.

By Mubatsi Asinja Habati