As the first country to submit an updated NDC in Africa, Rwanda’s pioneering action has set mitigation and adaptation priorities and targets across various sectors. With climate finance playing a key role in its NDC implementation, building capacity to develop bankable project proposals to access these funds is crucial.

To enhance knowledge and skills in this area, Rwanda requested the Eastern Africa Alliance on Carbon Markets to train Civil Society Organizations and sector experts on how to access climate finance, with a high focus on accessing the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The Alliance in collaboration with REMA, GGGI, GIZ on behalf of BMU and the UNFCCC’s Regional Collaboration Center Kampala, organized a a six week online course on preparing climate finance proposals from March 25th to April 29th 2021.

Participants were taken through the requirements in developing GCF concept notes and proposals in topics ranging from barrier analysis, project structure and design, climate rationale, investment criteria and project budgeting. Further to this the climate finance landscape with other sources of climate finance was expounded on.

Prior to start of the training, participants submitted Project Idea Notes and during the sessions they had the opportunity to practically apply what they had learned to improve on their initial submissions. Overall, 42 consistent participants successfully completed the training providing an opportunity to scale up the activity to the other Alliance member countries.