The Green Climate Fund is convening its national and regional accredited entities for four days of training on the Fund’s environmental and social safeguards (ESS) and gender policy at GCF headquarters in Songdo. The training is being offered through the Fund’s Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme to all nine entities that the Board has accredited for direct access.

The purpose of the training is to strengthen the competencies of these entities to ensure their performance in project implementation is consistent with the Fund’s requirements. Participants will review best practices on how to identify, categorize, mitigate, and monitor environmental and social (E&S) risks in projects.

Several of the nine direct access entities are preparing to upgrade their accreditation status to a higher E&S category. This would allow them to scale up their operations with the Fund. Recipient countries can access GCF resources through direct access entities they propose and set up as long as these implementing entities fulfill certain fiduciary standards.

A main component of the training focuses on embedding gender considerations at the institutional and project levels. The Governing Instrument for the Green Climate Fund specifically calls for taking a gender‐sensitive approach, making GCF the first fund to mandate the integration of gender‐based perspectives from the outset of its operations.

The Songdo Workshop follows an explicit request from the GCF Board at its recent tenth meeting to provide gender training to GCF accredited entities. Participating organizations in the training include:

• Acumen Fund, Inc. (Acumen; nominated by the Republic of Kenya)
• Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC; Belize)
• Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE; Senegal)
• Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF; Venezuela)
• Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF; Namibia)
• Ministry of Natural Resources of Rwanda (MINIRENA; Rwanda)
• National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD; India)
• Peruvian Trust Fund for National Parks and Protected Areas (PROFONANPE; Peru), and
• Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP; Samoa)