As global leaders are convening at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, one message is loud and clear: we must urgently accelerate climate action – and this means accelerating work to translate countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans, and other climate strategies into projects and investments on the ground.

To support countries in achieving national climate action, the NDC Partnership and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) proudly launched a joint Climate Investment Planning and Mobilization Framework at COP28 Finance Day.

The Framework is inspired by a shared vision: to find a common language for diverse actors across governments, development partners, the private sector, and the finance sector to communicate their priorities, needs, challenges and lessons learned, as we collectively work towards planning and mobilizing finance for climate investments.

“This Framework helps to establish a common investment planning language for stakeholders including governments, the GCF, the private sector, and multilateral and bilateral funders,” said NDC Partnership Global Director Pablo Vieira at the launch of the Framework.

“GCF is proud to partner with the NDC Partnership to develop this Framework, which will help countries successfully navigate the journey from establishing climate ambitions, to developing planning instruments, to mobilizing finance for climate action – and hopefully make this journey simpler and faster,” said GCF Deputy Executive Director Henry Gonzalez also at the Framework launch.

Serving as a non-prescriptive guide that brings together both organisations’ experience of investment planning and mobilization, the Framework will empower countries and financial stakeholders to structure and secure finance for investments in alignment with climate objectives. The Framework has been built with the understanding that investment planning is a dynamic and iterative process shaped by each country’s unique context, ambition, and capability. Various countries and financiers may begin this process at different stages; therefore, the Framework outlines a general path through which investment planning and mobilization advances, allowing countries to better identify how to transform their priorities into investments, as well as the support they may need along the way.

In addition, the Framework illustrates the investment planning and finance mobilization journey through six broad stages and eighteen components, providing insights on the steps and outcomes that countries, with their partners, may take at each stage and indicative support needs. A few key features of the Framework include:

• Integrated financial planning for implementing climate policy instruments;
• A discussion of the importance of effective national coordination and evidence-based decision-making;
• Ways to translate your investment needs from NDCs using evidence-based climate information at scale; and
• Options for navigating the often complex ‘bridge’ between policymakers and financial actors.

Overall, the Framework empowers countries to identify and prioritize their climate finance needs, strengthening their ability to attract and mobilize climate finance and identify knowledge and capacity gaps. It is also designed to help providers of finance and support ‘demystify’ the complex climate finance landscape by finding ways that they can be more complementary in providing support.

The Framework and its accompanying guide are presented as living resources, expected to evolve through ongoing consultation, input, and learning from countries, financiers, support providers, and other users. Over time, this document is intended to be complemented by an online resource library, offering detailed guidance, terms of reference for specific support outputs under each stage, training videos, case studies, best practices, and more. Together the guide and the online platform will serve as:

• A country level climate finance planning tool leading to programming (finance mobilization) with financial partners;
• A readiness needs assessment tool to compare countries' state of readiness and identify capacity and knowledge gaps in securing access to climate finance;
• A navigation tool, mapping support providers under each stage/step, ensuring complementarity and coherence between readiness support providers; and
• A guide to more online resources, providing links to more detailed guidance and examples.

The NDC Partnership and the Green Climate Fund would like to invite our valued networks of partners and collaborators to join in contributing to this shared resource and look forward to your input and insight. To see the Framework launch event please visit NDC Partnership’s YouTube channel.