Indonesia can learn from Mongolia’s placement of women-led small businesses on the climate action frontline, according to the representative of a state-owned corporation at a Green Climate Fund workshop.

“As many of Indonesia’s smaller industries are run by women, we would benefit from bolstering their ability to deal with climate change,” said Alke Haesra, with PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (PT SMI), an Indonesian finance corporation funding infrastructure projects.

Mr Haesra said he has learned a lot from other participants during GCF’s Empowering Direct Access workshop, which winds up today.

He said he was particularly impressed with a GCF-funded programme run by Mongolia’s XacBank which helps local businesses tap renewable energy and energy efficiency opportunities. At least half of the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) targeted in this GCF-funded climate finance programme are expected to be run by women.

One of the best ways to deal with climate change is to bolster mid-sized and smaller businesses at the same time, added Mr Haesra.

“A focus on strengthening smaller enterprises also matches with the Indonesian Government’s current focus on growing MSMEs as the foundation of Indonesia's economy to better protect it from financial crises such as the one that hit Indonesia in 2008,” he said.

Mr Haesra has followed GCF’s call during the workshop to learn from others. He is also exploring the possibility of adopting an idea by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to install solar panels feeding into electric train lines to a similar scheme PT SMI proposes to power electric buses in Indonesia.

Stephanie Kwan, GCF’s Senior Accredited Entities Specialist, told workshop participants that GCF has a wide range of resources to help entities develop funding proposals. For instance, she called on direct access Accredited Entities to take advantage of the Fund’s Project Preparation Facility (PPF).

The cross sharing of climate finance ideas has been a major feature of this GCF workshop, which has brought together PT SMI and 21 other GCF direct access Accredited Entities.

While the workshop has served as a platform to swap climate finance experiences, it has also provided GCF Partners with further details on how they can access GCF resources.