Climate Finance Mechanisms, Safeguards and Gender Training for Financial Institutions

The financial sector plays an important role in mobilizing resources to finance a low-carbon economy, through financial intermediation and through the creation and placement of instruments that support climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Latin American Association of Financial Institutions for Development (ALIDE), as the main regional forum for generating banking solutions for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean, is responsible for implementing the GCF Readiness Project to increase financial institutions’ participation in climate finance, working in collaboration with the Designated National Authorities of the Green Climate Fund.

AAE has supported and accompanied ALIDE in designing and implementing a regional online and on-site training program and community of practice on climate finance mechanisms, emphasizing green business lines, gender policies and environmental and social safeguards. The training program complemented existing capacity strengthening initiatives for the financial sector (such as the Green Finance LAC initiative, Green Finance Lab, Climate Action in financial institutions, UNEP FI and others).

The project included: i) six online training programs (Argentina, Cuba, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Uruguay) on climate finance mechanisms which included raising awareness in the financial sector of key climate finance figures derived from IPCC reports and global sources; ii) an on-site training program in Peru to present the regional on-line training program results and a proposal for a community of practice on climate finance mechanisms; and iii) development of materials and documents for the online and on-site training program.