The GCF Board reconvened on 13-16 March 2023 in Songdo, Incheon, Republic of Korea, to hold the 35th Board Meeting. The meetings produced various decisions including the approval of multi-country and country-specific projects/programs, and a new accreditation mechanism called the Project-specific Assessment Approach (PSAA).

GCF Board meetings mainly discuss plans of the GCF, approval of project proposals and accreditation processes, and new information on the GCF governance with complete transparency. The 35th board meeting (B.35) touched upon a number of agendas that aimed to streamline the GCF processes globally and approved a multi-country project involving Indonesia as one of the beneficiaries.

One of the seven funding proposals presented during the 35th Board meeting was the “Sustainable Renewables Risk Mitigation Initiative (SRMI) Facility (Phase 2 Resilience focus)” or SRMI Resilience. The project was approved in B.35, with a total valuation of USD 1.1 billion and 55 million tonnes of emissions avoided across several countries in Africa and Asia Pacific, including Indonesia. Revolving around renewable energy infrastructures, SRMI Resilience aims to propel beneficiary countries to strengthen their energy transition programmes and uphold solid procurement processes needed to crowd in private investments in the future. Indonesia acts as one of the beneficiaries of the SRMI project.

The GCF also set a new accreditation mechanism in motion, namely the Project-specific Assessment Approach (PSAA). The PSAA was established to simplify the approval process for entities wishing to propose a single project. Unlike the usual accreditation mechanism, institutional accreditation, the PSAA assesses whether an entity can implement a specific proposed project/program in accordance with GCF accreditation standards (see Figure 1). It is aimed to be a simpler method than the institutional accreditation mechanism, where it assesses an entity based on its ability to undertake projects/programs in the future. The GCF will be reviewing up to ten proposals annually during the PSAA Pilot framework from April 2023 to March 2026, which hopefully, be able to reach underserved partners, countries, and technologies.

Figure 1: Comparison of the institutional accreditation and PSAA process institutional accreditation dan PSAA

*TAP = Technical Advisory Panel

As GCF introduces new innovations with the aim to extend its reach in various sectors and regions globally, Indonesia can undoubtedly utilize them to increase financing for national climate action as well as maximizing access to the GCF in support to the strengthening of the country’s climate project pipeline.