Pilot Program for Climate Resilience

Pilot Program for Climate Resilience

Summary

The Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) is a targeted programme of the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF), which is one of two funds under the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) framework.

The PPCR aims to pilot and demonstrate ways in which climate risk and resilience may be integrated into core development planning and implementation by providing incentives for scaled-up action and initiating transformational change in participating pilot countries.

Basic Description

Name of the Fund Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR)
Official Fund Website https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/topics/climate-resilience
Date Created
Date fund proposed: February 2008.
Date fund made operational: July 2008 (approved by the World Bank Board of Directors).

November 2008 (approved by the SCF Trust Fund Committee).

Proposed Life of Fund The PPCR is subject to the CIF ‘sunset clause’ which proposes the closure of the CIF once a new financial architecture becomes effective under the UNFCCC regime. The implementation of the CIF ‘sunset clause’ has been suspended repeatedly and in 2019 indefinitely. Until such time, donors and recipients operate under the existing framework.
Objectives The PPCR is designed to provide programmatic finance for climate resilient national development plans with four main objectives:

  1. Pilot and demonstrate approaches for integration of climate risk and resilience into development policies and planning
  2. Strengthen capacities at the national levels to integrate climate resilience into development planning
  3. Scale-up and leverage climate resilient investment, building on other on-going initiatives
  4. Enable learning-by-doing and sharing of lessons at country, regional and global levels.

In addition, for regional programmes, the PPCR aims to strengthen cooperation and capacity at the regional level to integrate climate resilience into national and appropriate regional development planning and processes.

PPCR’s tangible targets for the 18 pilot countries and three regional programmes it currently supports include:

  1. Bringing livelihood benefits to over 45 million people
  2. Developing over 600 plans or strategies at the local, sectoral and national levels
  3. Producing over 600 knowledge products, systems and studies
  4. Providing climate resilience training to over 200,000 government officials and public beneficiaries.
Financial inputs and fund size As of November 2020, PPCR’s fund capital amounts to USD 1.1 billion.

The contributor countries are: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Spain, Japan, United Kingdom and United States.

The application of all CIF finance (concessional loans, grants, and guarantees through the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)) can be classed as ODA by MDBs if:

  • It meets the criterion of promoting economic development and welfare.
  • The grant element is at least 25%.
  • The funds are to be used in a country included in the OECD-DAC list of ODA eligible countries.
Activities Supported The activities supported by the PPCR include:

  • Funding for technical assistance to enable developing countries to build upon existing national work to integrate climate resilience into national and sectoral development plans
  • Funding public and private sector investments identified in national or sectoral development plans or strategies and addressing climate resilience.

Activities supported by the PPCR include programmes within the following sectors:

  • Sustainable agriculture: supporting the transformation of lands with sustainable land and water management practices
  • Hydrometer and climate information services: equipping countries with agromet stations, hydrological stations and meteorological stations
  • Coastal zone management: supporting communities through context-specific approaches for protecting people and business in coastal zones
  • Resilient infrastructure: providing climate-resilient roads for safe, year-round accessibility, and supporting the development of small-scale, community-level infrastructure
  • Adaptation finance: piloting climate adaptation financing facilities.

Administrating Organization

Secretariat or Administrative Unit The CIF Administrative Unit (AU) supports the work of the Strategic Climate Fund Trust Fund Committee and other committees, including the PPCR Sub-Committee. It provides recommendations and reporting on operational and financial matters to the CIF governing bodies.

AU is housed in the World Bank Group’s Washington DC offices and is comprised of a small professional and administrative staff.

Trustee The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) acts as Trustee for all Climate Investment Funds, including the PPCR.

Fund Finance and Access Modalities

Conditions and Eligibility Requirements Country access requirements:

  • ODA-eligibility (according to OECD/DAC guidelines)
  • Existence of active multilateral development bank (MDB) country programmes.

Priority is given to highly vulnerable Least Developed Countries eligible for MDB concessional funds, including the Small Island Developing States.

Accessing the Fund
Access Modalities – PPCR funding is only accessible through Multilateral Development Banks (the World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, African Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank) acting as implementing partners. Programming eligibility for PPCR programmes and projects is assessed according to:

  • The capacity to integrate climate resilience into country development strategies
  • The inclusive approach to climate resilient growth and development
  • The opportunity to increase awareness of the potential impact of climate change
  • The programme potential to scale-up investment for broader interventions and programming related to climate resilience
  • The capacity to improve coordination among stakeholders regarding country-specific climate resilient programmes.

PPCR proposal and approval process:

  1. CIF Administrative Unit, through MDBs, informs prospective countries and invites expression of interest.
  2. PPCR-Sub Committee (SC) identifies and agrees upon regional or country pilots informed by expert review.
  3. Country-led, joint MDB missions engage with the government, appropriate UN offices in the country, private sector, national civil society and other stakeholders on how the pilot programme may enhance the climate resilience of national development plans, strategies and financing.
  4. Recipient countries and relevant MDBs jointly prepare proposals for PPCR funding.
  5. PPCR-SC approves allocation of resources for programmes and other activities and costs based on the proposals submitted.
Financial Instruments – PPCR financing strategy includes:

  • Grant finance to prepare the Strategic Programme for Climate Resilience (Phase 1)
    • Grant amount of up to USD 1.5 million proposed for Phase 1 preparation of single country programme.
  • Preparation grants for detailed preparation of activities in the Strategic Programme (Phase 2)
    • An estimated USD 1.5 million in preparation funds is available for each participating country.
  • Financing (to the extent it is available), to cover the additional costs associated with mainstreaming climate resilience into investments.
    • Both grants and concessional loans are available to finance the additional costs necessary to make a project climate resilient.

Currently, funding is split equally between loans and grants. The World Bank has emphasised that loans are optional; a recipient country can accept the grant component without the loan component. Highly Indebted Poor Countries will not be eligible for loans, in order to avoid further debt burdens.

Financing may be made available through budget support/development policy lending, coordinated investment programmes across key sectors, alongside national financing and/or existing international support mechanism targeted at the public and/or private sector, which may, for example, include credit lines and partnerships with financial intermediaries, guarantees, and equity-based operations.

As the PPCR is designed to integrate climate resilience into development plans, PPCR funded actions should, as an overarching principle, not be free-standing and should be fused with MDB resources and/or other parallel co-financing measures, including government and/or private sector resources.

Accreditation process – There is no accreditation process for the CIF as only the MDBs can access and implement CIF funding, including for the PPCR.
Overview of implementing entities – The World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank are the implementing agencies for PPCR investments.
Nature of recipient country involvement – PPCR programmes are intended to be country led, build on National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) other relevant country studies and strategies.

Concepts proposals have to be submitted by an MDB on behalf of the potential project proponent. Project concepts are developed with the engagement of government focal points and relevant public and private sector stakeholders and beneficiaries from the recipient countries.

Each PPCR programme has a country focal point, which is usually from the recipient governments (e.g. focal point in Bolivia: the Ministry of Environment and Water and the Ministry of Development Planning; focal point in Haiti: the Interministerial Committee for Regional Development). The PPCR country focal point is responsible for “obtaining project/programme-level data from the PPCR project implementation units/teams, for aggregating data at the country programme level and for submitting the information to the CIF Administrative Unit on an annual basis”.

Allocation criteria – PPCR Sub-Committee states that “countries assessed as being at high risk of debt distress are not eligible to access credits for public sector projects. Countries assessed at being at moderate risk of debt distress may access PPCR credits for public sector investments provided that these countries, together with the MDBs and the IMF, conduct a macro-economic analysis to evaluate the potential for PPCR credits to impact their debts sustainability. All countries may utilize PPCR credits for private sector investments”.

Information regarding the allocation of grants is only available for PPCR pilot programmes:

Preparation activities

  1. Preparation of Strategic Programme for Climate Resilience: up to USD 1.5 million
  2. Projection preparation grants: no cap.

Allocation

  1. Country Pilots Allocation: USD 40-50 million per country
  2. Regional pilot programmes allocation: USD 60-75 million per programme.
Safeguards, Gender and Indigenous Peoples
Safeguards – The safeguards included at the project and programme level under the PPCR depend on the partner multilateral development bank implementing the projects and programmes. The projects and programmes are therefore subject to the environmental and social safeguards of the implementing MDBs.
Gender – PPCR falls under the CIF Gender Policy and the CIF Gender Action Plan. While the Gender Policy provides a governance framework for gender integration in the CIF, the Gender Action Plan is “committed to mainstreaming gender in CIF policy and programming, in support of gender equality in climate resilient, low-carbon development investment across the CIF portfolio”. The CIF Gender Action Plan is currently in Phase 3 and has two main aims:

  1. To deepen upstream support to MDBs and countries on gender technical assistance for Investment Plan and project design,
  2. To enhance gender monitoring and reporting, and knowledge and capacity.
Indigenous Peoples – PPCR is subject to CIF governance which treats Indigenous Peoples as a core stakeholder group. While there is a separate CIF Gender Policy, there is no equivalent CIF Indigenous Peoples Policy. Instead, the existing policies and approaches of the MDBs implementing PPCR projects and programmes apply.

Indigenous Peoples are granted representation in CIF governance as active observers. This status gives IPs the opportunity to directly advocate on behalf of their constituents in the CIF Trust Fund Committees and the PPCR Sub-Committee.

Fund Governance

Decision Making Structure PPCR is part of the governance arrangements for the SCF, which includes a SCF Trust Fund Committee, a PPCR Sub-Committee, and an MDB Committee.

SCF Trust Fund Committee
The SCF Trust Fund Committee is in charge of overseeing the operations and activities of the SCF, which includes the PPCR. It gives equal weight to representatives from donor and recipient countries. The composition of the SCF Trust Fund Committee consists of representatives from:

  • Eight recipient countries
  • Eight contributor countries
  • Select Observers, namely one each from Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), four from Civil Society Organisations, two from the private sector, and two from Indigenous Peoples.

The list of actual SCF Trust Fund Committee members is available at: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif_enc

PPCR Sub-Committee
The SCF Trust Fund Committee established a PPCR Sub-Committee to oversee its operations. It is composed of:

  • Six representatives from donor countries to the PPCR, identified through consultation with contributor countries;
  • Six representatives from eligible recipient countries to the PPCR, identified through consultation with the recipient countries;
  • Select Observers, namely one each from Adaptation Fund, GCF, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNFCCC, UNPFII, one from a Community-Based Organisation, four from Civil Society Organisations, two from the private sector, and two from Indigenous Peoples.

Decisions are made by consensus. Members serve for one-year terms and may be reappointed. No more than one member will represent the same country at any given time.

Responsibilities of the PPCR Sub-Committee:

  • Approving programming priorities, operational criteria and financing modalities for the PPCR
  • Selecting countries to be funded under the PPCR and approving PPCR financing for programmes
  • Ensuring that activities of the PPCR complement the activities of other development partners (including the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the UN organisations), in order to maximise synergies and avoid overlap
  • Approving members of the Expert Group and providing guidance and information necessary for the Expert Group to perform its duties.

The list of actual PPCR Sub-Committee members is available at: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif_enc

MDB Committee
The MDB Committee facilitates collaboration, coordination and the exchange of information, knowledge, and experience among MDB partners. The list of MDB focal points is available at: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif_enc

Accountability Mechanisms CIF
The CIFs don’t have their own independent accountability mechanisms. As all CIF projects and programs are implemented by partner MDBs, the CIF rely on their established transparency accountability mechanisms. In addition, the CIF commission third party evaluations as part of their own ‘Evaluation and Learning Initiative’. A list of over 30 studies and activities can be found here.

An Independent Evaluation of the CIF experience was requested by the CIF Trust Fund Committees and completed in 2014. The evaluation was conducted by a consulting firm selected and supervised by a joint working group of the independent evaluation offices of five Multilateral Development Bank (MDBS): ADB, AfDB, EBRD, IDB, and the World Bank.

Among the findings are the following:

  1. “The lack of a strategy with respect to CIF’s sunset clause is causing uncertainty in operations”.
  2. “Efficiency and effectiveness has been hindered by the CIF’s complex architecture, consensus decision rule and lack of a secretariat with strong executive function”.
  3. “Some projects are plausibly transformational; other lack a convincing logic of transformation and impact”.
  4. “Aside from this report, there is no provision for independent evaluation at the national, Programme, or Fund level, or for a summative evaluation of the CIF”.

The CIF administrative unit has also been working with partner countries to understand their domestic frameworks for monitoring and evaluation. A strategic assessment of the environmental, social and gender impacts of the CIF was completed in 2010, and IUCN conducted a Gender Evaluation of the CIF in 2012. More recently, a report evaluating the engagement of women and gender-related groups in the CIF was released in 2020.

PPCR
The internal monitoring and evaluation framework of the PPCR is described in its Monitoring and Reporting Toolkit (2016). This toolkit provides guidance and reporting tools for the five PPCR core indicators:

  1. “Degree of integration of climate change in national, including sector, planning;
  2. Evidence of strengthened government capacity and coordination mechanism to mainstream climate resilience;
  3. Quality and extent to which climate responsive instruments (investment models are developed and tested;
  4. Extent to which vulnerable households, communities, business, and public sector services use improved PPCR supported tools, instruments, strategies, and activities to respond to climate variability or climate change;
  5. Number of people supported by the PPCR to cope with the effects of climate change.”

In addition, the toolkit is designed to help the MDBs, country project/programme teams and other stakeholders to provide consistent accurate data and information on the projected results and actual achievements of PPCR projects/programmes.

Participation of Observers and Stakeholders As part of the design process of the CIF, consultations took place with potential donors and recipients, the United Nations family, other multilateral development banks (MDBs), civil society organisations, and the private sector. The CIF were created on agreement from some 40 developing and industrialised countries.

The SCF Trust Fund Committee and the PPCR-SC encourages strong developing country participation.

Over time, the PPCR has made a growing investment in engaging stakeholders within recipient countries around the goals of the programme. Operating within CIF decision-making structure, the PPCR Sub-Committee includes an “equal representation of donor and recipient countries, consensus decision making, and active observer status for private sector, civil society, and Indigenous Peoples representatives.

Observers
Under the CIF, selected observers from different stakeholder groups can serve as ‘active observers’ on CIF Trust Fund Committees and Sub-Committees. Active observers for the PPCR-SC include representatives from:

  • Four civil society representatives (from Asia, LAC, Africa and developing countries respectively)
  • Two private sector representatives (one from a developed country and one from a developing country)
  • One community-based organisation
  • Two Indigenous Peoples representatives.

The list of actual PPCR-SC observers is available at: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif_enc

Expert Group
An Expert Group was established by the PPCR Sub-Committee to make recommendations on the selection of countries that will receive financing under the PPCR. The Expert Group consists of eight members with a wide range of scientific, economic, social, environmental, development, policy and/or governance/institutional expertise, as well as climate-related knowledge in areas such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and health.

Partnership Forum
The Partnership Forum serves as an annual gathering, which enables stakeholders to engage in dialogue on the CIF’s strategic directions, results and impacts. Forum stakeholders include representatives of donor and eligible recipient countries, MDBs, UN and UN agencies, GEF, GCF, UNFCCC, the Adaptation Fund, bilateral development agencies, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples, private sector entities, and scientific and technical experts. The Partnership Forum is co-chaired by the World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development and a country representative elected by countries participating in the Partnership Forum.

Transparency and Information Disclosure Pledges, deposits and funding decisions for the SCF and its subsidiary funds (PPCR, SREP and FIP) are reported to the SCF Trust Fund Committee in biannual trustee reports. Details on individual projects are made public and available at: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/projects

Disclosure Policy
With respect to information disclosure, the CIF largely rely on the public information polices of the partner MDBs which implement CIF projects and programmes. They can be found here. In addition, in May 2009, the Trust Fund Committees approved a disclosure policy supporting in-country disclosure of country-owned investment plans and strategies (developed under each of the Trust Funds) prior to their submission to a CIF Committee for approval. Proposed plans are also posted on the CIF website no later than three weeks prior to review of the proposal by a Committee. In the case of proposed programmes and projects, an information document describing the proposal is to be made public at least two weeks prior to a decision on the funding of the proposal. The policy recognises that a country or a project proposer may have justifiable reasons for not publicly disclosing all information in an investment plan or project, and in exceptional cases, subject to Committee approval, certain information may be kept confidential. Information on the disbursement of finance is provided in trustee reports; however this information is not always comprehensive.

Other Issues Raised The PPCR has been controversial as it established a parallel framework for delivering adaptation finance to and potentially drew some public funding support away from the adaptation funds under the UNFCCC such as the Special Climate Change Fund, Least Developed Countries Fund, and the Adaptation Fund, all of which are accessible to more developing countries than the PPCR’s pilot country approach which only serves a limited set of developing countries. It has also been controversial because it offers developing countries (concessional) loans for adaptation which many stakeholders feel is inappropriate as it adds to developing country debt, and is inconsistent with some understandings of adaptation finance as compensation for harm caused by the developing world under the polluter pays principles.