The proposed project is a scaling up of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) initiative launched by the Government of Benin with UNCDF support in 2014. This initiative was originally implemented in three local governments (or communes) in the Departments of Atacora and Donga (Boukoumbé, Copargo and Toukountouna), and subsequently extended to six communes, including some in the Department of Alibori (Banikoara, Cobly, Karimama, Malanville, Materi and Ouaké). Building on this pilot, the proposed programme aims for the consolidation and gradual deployment of the programme in 25 local governments in six years, reaching a population of more than 2.68 million in highly vulnerable agro-ecological zones corresponding to the departments of Atacora, Alibori, Donga and Mono.The first version of the funding proposal was submitted to the GCF on March 30, 2023, and the second on May 15, 2023. The GCF_Review- Feedback_FNEC-Benin was received on June 08, 2023.

The Funding Proposal envisages the deployment of both capacity building and technical assistance support as well as climate earmarked, performance-based grants – Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRG) - for strengthening the awareness and response capacities of target local governments and their communities to climate risks through appropriate local responses, while predictably increasing their access to climate finance for the realization of climate resilient rural infrastructure and adaptation interventions in key sectors, especially in terms of climate resilient and diversified livelihood options (ARA 1.0), health and wellbeing, food and water security (ARA 2.0), infrastructure and built environment (ARA 3.0), ecosystem preservation and restoration (ARA 4.0).