ecbi organized a Finance Circle meeting on 30 November 2011 in Durban, South Africa. Ten participants from the US, Venezuela, Georgia, Switzerland, Cuba, Ireland, Germany, Ireland, and the European Commission attended.

The meeting took place briefly after the US and Venezuela had announced to the Conference of Parties (COP) that they were unhappy with the draft Instrument of the Green Climate Fund, and would like to make changes. The discussion at the ecbi Finance Circle meeting therefore centred around the reasons for the US and Venezuelaís discontent, and how to take the process forward. (Later at the COP, both countries agreed not to reopen negotiations on the text of the Instrument, but deal with they objections through a covering COP deicison).

ecbi also provided support for the LDC delegation as part of a framework agreement between the Climate and Development Network (CDKN) and the LDC Chair, Pa Ousman Jarju from The Gambia. Achala Chandani, Head of the ecbi Workshops Programme, assisted Pa (ecbi Fellow) as a member of the Gambian delegation. ecbi Director Benito Müller and Saleemul Huq (ecbi Executive Committee) were Advisors to the LDC Chair. Anju Sharma, Head of ecbi Policy Analysis and Publication Unit, managed the production of policy and legal briefs requested by the LDC Chair and produced by IIED, OCP and FIELD.