Board members and alternates from 37 countries have arrived in Songdo, Republic of Korea, for the twelfth meeting of the Board (B.12) of the Green Climate Fund, from 8 to 10 March 2016.

Co-Chairs Zaheer Fakir (South Africa) and Ewen McDonald (Australia) expect the meeting to resolve key operational issues that will make it easier to approve funding proposals and enter into funding agreements.

B.12 is the first formal Board meeting since the monumental 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015, and since the Fund approved its first eight projects in Zambia in November 2015.

So soon after these two milestone meetings, the global community has high hopes that the Board can resolve some of the Fund’s remaining policy and implementation gaps and scale up operations. According to the Co-Chairs, it is in good shape to deliver.

“The informal Board Dialogue in Cape Town in February 2016 was marked by renewed enthusiasm and goodwill,” said South African Co-Chair, Zaheer Fakir.

“We left the meeting with a shared commitment and operating as one team — a united Board, Secretariat, observers and implementing entities, working to deliver against our aspirational funding target of USD 2.5 billion in 2016.”

With this target in mind, the Co-Chairs are pleased that the Board has decided to hold an additional Board meeting in 2016.

“B.12 will not consider funding proposals, but will focus on the priority operational matters that require action by the Board, and accredit new entities to grow the Fund’s partnership base,” said Ewen McDonald.

“With these matters hopefully resolved, the Board will then have a further three meetings this year at which it will consider funding proposals.”

Thanks to the concentrated efforts of the Board in Cape Town, the Co-Chairs also expect B.12 to deliver decisions on two of the key guiding documents for the Fund —the Strategic Plan and the 2016 Work Plan. Together, these documents will help to provide clarity on the Fund’s strategic vision, priority actions and order of work.

The Co-Chairs thank the Secretariat for their hard work in the lead up to this Board meeting.

“We look forward to the Board and Secretariat working together at B.12 and throughout 2016 to deliver on the Fund’s potential,” said McDonald.