To this day, climate change adaptation still needs greater support in terms of number and scale of activities. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) always tries to have a balance portfolio between climate change mitigation and adaptation. Given the market interest that is still leaning towards mitigation, adaptation projects need to get a stronger push.

Indonesia’s National Designated Authority (NDA) to the GCF, supported by Global Green Growth Institute sees this challenge and held a training on Developing Concept Notes for the Green Climate Fund: Urban Resilience in Indonesia. This training was successfully implemented thanks to collaboration with Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand with funding support from Ministry of Environment of Japan. The event was held on 12-16 June 2023 and participated by several GCF project proponents from different cities, with adaptation themes.

One of the challenges in developing a good concept note for adaptation projects is building a strong climate rationale. This training reviewed several crucial aspects to develop concept notes such as climate change-based problem identification, Theory of Change, logical framework, as well as how to mainstream Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) aspects into the project idea.

Indonesia has established four priority sectors into adaptation, namely water, agriculture, marine and coastal, and health. The 30 participants consisted of representatives from the Central Government, Local Government, NGO, financial institution, and local partners who were involved in the development of projects under the water, health, and agriculture sectors. These adaptation projects are driven by urgent local needs, both in terms of the urgency of intervention in adapting to the increasingly real climate change impact, as well as funding needs.

One of the participants from the city government of Pekalongan, Miftah revealed, “30% of Pekalongan City routinely impacted by tidal flood and is predicted to sink by 2035”. He stressed the urgency of intervention in Pekalongan City, which needs a lot of funding and have to access alternative funding such as the GCF.

Aside from that, a participant from the Ministry of Health also shared initiatives from the government and its potential to be scaled up with funding support from the GCF. Indah Hidayat from the Directorate of Environmental Health conveyed, “regarding climate change, we have prepared health service facilities in high-risk areas, initiatives for climate-related disease risk-based sanitation program such as dengue fever, and health promotion in high-risk areas (climate)”.

This training tries to embrace various stakeholders, including those who have no concept idea yet, but are in the process of becoming GCF accredited entity. Murni Hernawati from Bank CIMB Niaga expressed her appreciation for this training. “this training is beneficial because it is the first time that a national bank has participated in the development of the GCF concept note”. Bank CIMB Niaga’s presence in this training opens the potential for commercial national adaptation projects development. As well as further encouraging the involvement of national banks in general GCF funding.

Apart from the GCF, there are other climate finance focal points who participated in this event, such as Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Indonesian Environment Fund (IEF). They were present to deliver information on alternative funding or complementing the proposed GCF funding. With this training, hopefully climate adaptation funding in Indonesia can be catalyzed.