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UN pooled funds are financing instruments at the service of multi-stakeholder coalitions that bring together governments, UN agencies, civil society and private sector. In order to discuss achievements and learnings from this type of innovative financing instruments, the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office convened the 2021 edition of the UN Pooled Funding Multi-Stakeholder Discussion Forum.

The forum is a periodic platform for stakeholder dialogue and engagement, which was established in 2019 at the request of the UNDP Executive Board and following recommendations from an independent evaluation of inter-agency pooled funds in September 2018.

Its objective is to review progress and discuss trends in global financing and strategies on the way forward, to strengthen partner engagement and reinforce the confidence of partners in the mechanism and its use. 

During this edition, representatives from Member States, UN entities and civil society discussed recent growth and trends, particularly around the specific commitments on pooled funding established by the Funding Compact, a mutual agreement by UN Member States and the UN Development System on how to improve the way the UN is funded.

Trends and tools in pooled funding

Latest data shows a steady growth in pooled financing, due to its comparative advantages in funding flexible and integrated responses to humanitarian, transition and development challenges. For example, funding to development related inter-agency pooled funds has tripled since 2015, and now represents approximately 9% of all non-core funding to UN development-related activities.

An important part of the discussion centered on how to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of pooled funds through series of common management features, fully spelled out under Commitment 14 in the Compact, covering such aspects as clear theories of change, solid results-based management systems, and transparency standards. The Fiduciary Management Oversight Group (FMOG) presented progress in recent inter-agency work in this regard and the Development Coordination Office (DCO) shared experiences on how UN country teams are implementing these features as part of SDG country-level pooled funds.

Climate finance

Just days after COP16 in Glasgow, during this edition, the MPTF Office presented a brief on inter-agency pooled funds and climate finance, with an overview of its climate change and environment portfolio, providing examples that respond to questions of how pooled funding contributes to the overall climate financing Ecosystem. Several climate funds and initiatives such as the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), the Global Fund for Coral Reefs and the Mali Climate Fund are some examples of this work.

The research shows that climate resources provided by MPTFs are often used in high-risk contexts since pooled financing allows for de-risking. Pooling resources through the UN spreads risks wider so many partners can collectively invest in high-risk solutions and link climate finance with global sustainable development goals and agendas. It also shows that pooled financing is being strategically used for sequencing available and often disconnected financing for climate initiatives.

• Meeting recording
• Slide deck
• Background paper
• Brief inter-agency pooled funds and climate finance

Glasgow, 3 November 2021. On Finance Day at COP26, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced the creation of the Systematic Observations Finance Facility (SOFF).

This new finance mechanism will set the foundation to boost climate action globally and will contribute to achieving one of the main goals of COP26 – to urgently scale-up climate finance to support developing countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts.

The SOFF was created to address the long-standing problem of missing weather and climate observations from Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States. It will strengthen the international response to climate change by filling the data gaps that limit our understanding of the climate. These gaps affect our capacity to predict and adapt to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

The three founding agencies, WMO, UNDP and UNEP have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which legally established the SOFF as UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized that “Filling the large gaps in basic weather and climate data — particularly in Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries — is central to effective adaptation efforts and investments.”

Indeed, “today, less than 10% of required basic weather and climate observations are available from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries” said Professor Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General.

The implementation of the SOFF will provide benefits not only to the most vulnerable countries, but to all countries across the globe. Filling the data gaps will lead to better weather forecasts, early warning systems and climate information globally.

Weather and climate observations enabled by the SOFF are essential if the world community is to realize the 162 billion US dollars annually in socio-economic benefits of weather and climate prediction.

Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director, said that SOFF will “deliver tangible benefits in terms of lives saved, improved disaster management, livelihoods, biodiversity, food security, water supply and economic growth.”

According to Usha Rao-Monari, UNDP Associate Administrator, there is an urgent need to strengthen the foundation on which adaptation efforts rely “As climate change tightens its grip, the establishment of the SOFF is a pre-requisite to help vulnerable communities get ahead of the curve, adapt to the effects of climate change and build much-needed resilience.”

Realising the value of the SOFF, the international community has come forward and an initial group of countries and organizations announced financial support, including Denmark, Norway, Nordic Development Fund, Austria, and Portugal.

Flemming Møller Mortensen, Denmark’s Minister for Development and Nordic Cooperation, stated that “we are ready to walk the talk” in terms of mobilizing climate finance and achieving a better balance between adaptation and mitigation. However, he noted that “before we can begin to adapt, we need to have strong data on weather and climate.”  Danish Climate Ambassador, Tomas Anker Christensen emphasized that “Weather and climate observations are fundamental to help avert, minimize and address climate induced loss and damage, especially in Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.”

Peter Launsky, Secretary-General at Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, welcomed the SOFF as an “innovative answer to a global challenge.”

Norwegian Secretary of State, Bjørg Sandkjær, said that Norway is confident SOFF “will ensure that the whole value chain is developed from the collection of the observation data to the end user for the farmer as well as the policymaker”.

Switzerland also welcomed the establishment of the SOFF and confirmed the provision of financial support for setting up the SOFF Secretariat in Geneva in the start-up phase. In addition, several countries including Canada, France, Spain, Sweden and Turkey expressed strong support, and are exploring avenues to financially contribute to the SOFF in the near future.

After the start-up phase, SOFF is expected to open its doors for business in June 2022. In its first three-year implementation period, the SOFF will support 55 countries to close the weather and climate observation gap, including rehabilitation or establishment of up to 400 data-gathering stations, enabling them to generate and internationally exchange data that is missing today.

The Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, emphasized that this new finance mechanism is a lifeline to the most vulnerable countries, especially Small Islands States, which are on the front line of the fight against climate change. “Disaster readiness and disaster resilience are two sides of the same coin and they both stand to benefit from the SOFF, designed to support vulnerable countries like Fiji.”

Scaling up efforts to build resilience in vulnerable countries is even more urgent in light of the alarming level of global greenhouse gases emissions, stressed the Prime Minister of Cabo Verde. “Even bold mitigation actions cannot spare us from the significant impacts of climate change for decades to come. But we cannot adequately adapt if we cannot adequately predict. And we cannot predict, if we do not have sufficient data.”

Closing the event announcing the SOFF, Selwin Hart, Assistant Secretary-General and Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action, commended the creation of the SOFF as “an example of what the UN can do at its best – working as one, with many stakeholders across the globe” because “Adaptation does not depend on one of us, nor some of us, but all of us – working together for people and the planet.”

For further information please contact Markus Repnik at [email protected]

Adapted from press release originally published by the World Meteorological Organization

Glasgow, 2 November 2021 - President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom on behalf of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) today endorsed an ambitious 10-year agreement (2021-31) to protect the Congo Basin rainforest – the world's second largest.

“With its forests, water and mineral resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a genuine "Solution Country" to the climate crisis. To protect our forest and promote its sustainable management, our priority, backed by this new partnership, is to strengthen governance and transparency across all land use sectors. The Partnership will also support our ambition to respond to the dual challenge of food security and climate change through sustainable agriculture, primarily in the savannahs”, said Président Tshisekedi.

All sectors of the DRC’s economy have joined in this landmark agreement to undertake actions that could change land use practices that date back millennia. These concerted efforts are essential in a country the size of Western Europe with one of the lowest human development indices in the world, and that loses nearly half a million hectares of forest every year.

Through this new multi-year partnership, the DRC aims to first cap forest cover loss at its 2014-2018 average and ensure that deforestation continues to decline. The partnership will also promote the regeneration of 8 million hectares of degraded land and forests, and place 30% of national areas under a protection status, including areas where local communities undertake efforts to manage forests sustainably.

Lord Goldsmith, UK Minister for Pacific and the Environment declared “the UK is proud to be signing this ambitious ten-year Letter of Intent with the Central African Forest Initiative alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is a crucial step forward in our efforts to protect and restore the country’s precious forests, as well as providing sustainable livelihoods an alleviating poverty”.

Exacerbated by extreme poverty, forest loss in the DRC is mainly due to a growing population lacking livelihood opportunities outside the forest and relying mostly on fuelwood for cooking, all that in the absence of land use planning. Any solution proposed to stem forest loss in the DRC must therefore focus on rural development, poverty reduction, and better food security.

CAFI's support of $500 million over the first five years more than doubles the $190 million provided under the first Letter of Intent (2015-2020), whose objectives were delivered through a portfolio of over twenty programmes that supported large-scale reforms in agriculture, land-use planning and land tenure; directed agricultural activities towards tens of thousands of hectares of savannahs; and improved the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people.

The announcement at COP26 concludes months of discussions between CAFI donors and DRC Ministers, in which national civil society was fully involved. In a communiqué, Guy Kajemba, National coordinator of the umbrella civil society organisation “Groupe de Travail Climat REDD+ Rénové” declared: "We welcome this renewed partnership. It will help us closely monitor commitments taken, including the steps that will lead to a responsible and progressive lifting of the moratorium, the publication of contracts in all sectors linked to the use of land and the commitment taken by President Tshisekedi to cancel all dubious contracts of forest concessions. We are particularly encouraged by the mobilisation of all sectors committed to protect our High Value Forests and peatlands.”

TWELVE CONCRETE OBJECTIVES OF THE DRC-CAFI LETTER OF INTENT 2021-2031

1. High value forests, peatlands and community forest concessions are systematically incorporated into land-use plans, with the aim of maintaining the important role they play. 
2. The proportion of unsustainable wood energy (e.g. charcoal) for cooking is halved in the main urban centers by 2030 (note: 97% of Kinshasa 13 million inhabitants use fuelwood daily for cooking and consume over 17 million tons of wood per year, mainly sourced in an unsustainable manner).
3. No agro-industrial concessions will be allocated in high value forests and peatlands.
4. Transparency in natural resources governance is enhanced through the legal review of existing agriculture, logging, mine and oil concessions, the cancellation of illegal ones, as well as the publication of all contracts (linked to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative - EITI)
5. Transparent allocation procedures are followed for agriculture and logging concessions.
6. Forest governance is improved through stronger control and an ambitious 5 million hectares target of community forestry, doubling the original national target, along with a legal and regulatory framework adopted to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The signature of the Decree lifting the moratorium will be adopted only after the realization, on the basis of a consultative process, of the geographical programming of future allocations.
7. In line with the global 30 x 30 commitment, the DRC commits 30% of the country to be under various forms of protection status by 2030 while respecting the right to free prior and informed consent and  ensuring the voice of marginalized communities are heard. This includes areas that communities themselves dedicate to protection through a local-level zoning process they lead.
8. Eight million hectares of degraded lands and forests will be restored, as per the pledge of the DRC under the Recharge Papier pour Tableaux de Conference - Papier Preon restoration of degraded and deforested landscapes
9. The new and innovative tenure law and policy are adopted by end of 2022 and implemented, with the deployment of a decentralised tenure information system that include community-level tenure registries.
10. New social and environmental standards are defined and adopted to reduce the impact of mining and oil investments on forests and biodiversity, with reinforced measures in high value forests and peatlands. Any activity incompatible with conservation objectives in Protected Areas is banned.
11. A national population policy that is rights-based, evidence-informed and gender responsive is adopted by 2030 to promote a demographic transition that stimulates economic growth and reaches development objectives.
12. A model of forest-friendly special economic zone is piloted to support a low-deforestation green economy, and takes into account high value forests, peatlands and land planning processes.