B.44/14: Regional presence

The Board, having considered document GCF/B.44/17/Rev.01 titled “Operationalizing GCF regional presence: assessment results, proposed configurations and implementation plan” and its addenda:

1. Takes note of the Secretariat’s assessment of the eligible host country proposals to host a GCF regional presence, as presented in document GCF/B.44/17/Rev.01; 
2. Adopts the following configuration consistent with the Board document GCF/B.44/17/Rev.01 and document GCF/B.42/12 to be covered by GCF regional presence, recognizing that headquarters located in Republic of Korea will cover East, Southeast and South Asia:
   1. Regional office covering Latin America and the Caribbean;
   2. Regional office covering Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East;
   3. Regional office operating across two locations covering (a) East and Southern Africa, and (b) Central, North and West Africa; and
   4. A sub-regional office covering the Pacific, under the oversight of a Regional Director based in headquarters in Republic of Korea, located in Suva, Fiji;
3. Requests the Secretariat to advance the operationalization of regional presence, and to ensure strict cost control throughout implementation, including the timely realization of efficiency gains and cost offsets, so as to achieve budget neutrality within five years from the entry into force of the first host country agreement and, unless otherwise decided by the Board, maintain zero-real growth thereafter, relative to the final budget of that fiveyear period, for regional presence, and within the approved administrative budget envelope;
4. Notes that budget neutrality is understood to mean that the implementation and operational costs of regional offices are offset by corresponding operational savings and efficiency gains. In this context, encourages selected countries hosting regional presence to make best efforts to offset implementation costs, including through in-kind or financial contributions, to promote co-location with other international organizations where feasible, and to facilitate the timely provision of such support;
5. Requests the Secretariat, in consultation with Budget Committee, to establish a robust, transparent tracking and reporting mechanism that clearly accounts for associated costs, realized savings, and net budget impacts, and to systematically reflect these in the Fund’s multi-year budgeting framework and annual budget submissions for Board consideration, including by ensuring that the multi-year budget to be presented at the forty-sixth Board meeting, for the first time, contains a dedicated section in the budget documentation detailing such tracking and reporting of costs and savings;
6. Also requests the Secretariat to advance the operationalization of regional presence consistent with the Board document GCF/B.44/17/Rev.01, including developing quantitative and qualitative indicators of the monitoring plan to support the assessment of the effectiveness of regional presence and capturing and applying lessons learned throughout the rollout of regional presence, ensuring business continuity and that the pace of implementation does not adversely affect ongoing operations through the Secretariat’s oversight of the rollout process;
7. Further requests the Secretariat to report to the Board at each subsequent meeting on the status of negotiations of the host country agreements, including any material issues affecting the conclusion of an agreement according GCF with appropriate privileges and immunities, consistent with those presented in Appendix II of document GCF/B.42/12;
8. Decides to periodically assess and review the effectiveness of regional presence through relevant processes, including the Fund’s performance review cycle;
9. Recalls decision B.02-12/04 for the selection of headquarters of the Green Climate Fund, and adopts a special one-off confidential balloting procedure to only apply to the selection of each host country and city for regional offices or locations, which follows paragraphs 26 to 29 and 31 to 35(c) of the Procedures for adopting decisions in the event that all efforts at reaching consensus have been exhausted, without setting a precedent, to enable the Board to select the host countries and cities by consensus;
10. Decides that, as part of the special one-off confidential balloting procedure, the count of ballots shall not be revealed to the Board during the balloting process until after four consecutive rounds have been completed for each regional office or location selection process; and
11. Also decides that the following host countries and cities are presented as options for the purpose of confidential balloting for each region, and takes note that their inclusion reflects their high total scores in the assessment of proposals, their relatively low costs under the cost consideration criterion, the principles set out in decision B.41/10, and the need for geographical representation within each regional office or location:
    1. Latin America and the Caribbean: Panama (Panama City), Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo), or Chile (Santiago);
    2. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East: Georgia (Tbilisi), Uzbekistan (Tashkent), or Jordan (Amman);
    3. Africa:
       1. Location 1: East and Southern Africa: Kenya (Nairobi), Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), or Botswana (Gaborone); and 
       2. Location 2: Central, North and West Africa: Morocco (Rabat), Egypt (Cairo), Nigeria (Abuja), Côte d’Ivoire (Abidjan), or Senegal (Dakar).