Good morning to everyone. Allow me first to thank the Transitional Committee members and secretariat  for their invitation and allowing the Women and Gender NGO Constituency voice and space , albeit quite limited, in this important meeting to design the funding mechanism for global efforts to address Climate Change.
I am Frances Quimpo of the Center for Environmental Concerns in the Philppines, speaking on behalf of the constituency and the APWLD or the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development (APWLD).

  • The Green Climate Fund has an opportunity to distinguish itself from existing funds by being the first to integrate a gender perspective from the outset. Gender equality and gender justice in accordance with international human rights, including women’s human rights, must be the guiding principles of the Green Climate Fund. Gender equality as a cross-cutting issue must inform the Transitional Committee’s discussions about every aspect of the fund – from the statement of principles tostatement of governance, from the fund’s scope to beneficiaries, from actual gender-balanced representation in the Fund’s Board and other decision-making bodies to the institutionalization of monitoring and evaluation and redress mechanisms . The Green Climate Fund must be created as a gender-responsive climate finance mechanism by mainstreaming a gender perspective across all funding windows and funding instruments . Members of the women and gender constituency are honored to offer their knowledge in mainstreaming gender concerns in the Fund, if the TC finds it necessary.
  • We would also like to echo calls of NGOs across the globe that the World Bank should not be given a role in this new global climate fund because of its notoriety in financing environmentally destructive industries and continuous promotion of dirty energy projects. These said projects have only served to weaken capacities of Asian rural and urban poor women to cope with impacts of climate change. A further reason is the World Bank’s disregard for the principles and commitments espoused by the UNFCCC on the nature of climate finance, that we understand to mean that funding for adaptation must be compensatory for climate debt and be provided exclusively in form of grants. The World Bank continues to dangle loans to witting or unwitting cash-strapped calamity-ridden countries for the climate-related projects of their constituents.
  • As discussions yesterday centered on the definition of country ownership, we support proposals that this be understood to mean that the GCF funding and support be anchored in the development, adaptation and mitigation contexts and strategies of every country. These plans and strategies have to be developed in a fully transparent and participatory manner, which includes the involvement of all affected, particularly women. From a gender perspective, direct access should be the primary access modality for the GCF. It needs to apply not just to nation states, but include sub-national actors, such as local governments, community and women’s groups. Therefore, we would like to add that the GCF, in the furtherance of country ownership, provide guarantees for people’s access and control of resources. Climate resiliency, after all, rests on men’s and women’s access to, control ofand sustainability of natural resources, upon which most of Asian peoples, and people all over the world, build and rebuild their lives.
  •  A similar concern tackled yesterday was on leveraging private sector participation. While indeed private sector funds can expand much needed resources of the GCF, we urge honorable members of the TC that the GCF remain dedicated to continual leveraging of public funds and not rely on private funds to steer it. The core of the funds for the GCF must be predictable, new and additional public contributions by developed countries. This we believe is an essential point to preserve the verypurpose, framework and principles of predictable climate finance, rather than be waylaid by, market considerations and incentives.
  • Lastly, we implore that the Transitional Committee members affirm and ensure the participation of the full diversity of NGOs in the Climate Financial system, not only as mouthpieces of their respective constituencies but drivers of the fund towards equity and common but differentiated responsibility, gender equality and respect for human rights, and transparency and accountability.

Thank you. We wish the Transitional Committee success in this meeting.
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