European Capacity Building Initiative
ecbi Reports
Sida funded an independent review of ecbi for its 2011-2013 activities and found that the ecbi has achieved its overall outcomes as outlined in the report. The ecbi was found to fulfil a need not met by other initiatives, attributed to the fact that it does not push a specific agenda, and allows open discussion amongst negotiators in a setting separate from the negotiations process.
The ecbi has become an established presence in the climate change negotiation field - set apart by its participatory, impartial, developing countryled approach, which is rooted in negotiation experience. ecbi input has enabled developing country negotiators to collaborate and develop joint positions. This has led to impacts on negotiation decisions.
One of the key underpinning goals of the ecbi is to build trust between negotiators, both amongst developing country participants, and between those from the developing country and Europe. Respondents communicated strongly that they believed the ecbi is enabling trust building between participating negotiators, and were able to give examples of how this is manifest.
The evaluation also found that participants did feel they were better informed as a result of the ecbi.
Useful examples were identified of how this resulted in a more level playing field, as developing country negotiators and women negotiators often have less access to information resources than other stakeholders in the climate change negotiations. The ecbi also considers gender in its programming and is fulfilling its gender objectives.
Sida funded an independent review of ecbi for its 2011-2013 activities and found that the ecbi has achieved its overall outcomes as outlined in the report. The ecbi was found to fulfil a need not met by other initiatives, attributed to the fact that it does not push a specific agenda, and allows open discussion amongst negotiators in a setting separate from the negotiations process.
The ecbi has become an established presence in the climate change negotiation field - set apart by its participatory, impartial, developing countryled approach, which is rooted in negotiation experience. ecbi input has enabled developing country negotiators to collaborate and develop joint positions. This has led to impacts on negotiation decisions.
One of the key underpinning goals of the ecbi is to build trust between negotiators, both amongst developing country participants, and between those from the developing country and Europe. Respondents communicated strongly that they believed the ecbi is enabling trust building between participating negotiators, and were able to give examples of how this is manifest.
The evaluation also found that participants did feel they were better informed as a result of the ecbi.
Useful examples were identified of how this resulted in a more level playing field, as developing country negotiators and women negotiators often have less access to information resources than other stakeholders in the climate change negotiations. The ecbi also considers gender in its programming and is fulfilling its gender objectives.
ecbi Annual Report 2013/14
FY 2013-2014 marked the penultimate year of the current Phase III of the ecbi, a time for taking stock in order to plan for the future. A Sida funded independent evaluation of the activities between 2011 and 2013 found that the ecbi has achieved its overall outcomes. The ecbi was found to fulfil a need not met by other initiatives and to have become an established presence in the climate change negotiation field − set apart by its participatory, impartial, developing country-led approach, which is rooted in negotiation experience.
The Report describes the accomplishments of the ecbi in the FY2014/15. For one, the 2014 Oxford Fellowships and Seminar resulted in an OCP/ecbi Concept Note on a ‘Dynamic Contribution Cycle’ which has since become a prominent and promising option in the ADP negotiating text.
On 13 October 2014, the eve of Eighth meeting of the Barbados Green Climate Fund Board we organized a GCFB Caucus seminar to discuss the findings of an ecbi Policy Brief on Devolved Access Modalities: Lessons for the Green Climate Fund from Existing Practice. It was widely acknowledged that this was very helpful and conducive to the Board’s decision to request the Secretariat to prepare Terms of Reference for operationalising an Enhanced Direct Access pilot phase. Subsequently, we were able to have certain suggestions based on two ecbi Policy Papers (Consolidation and devolution of national climate finance: The case of India and Engaging Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in developing countries) reflected in the GCF Secretariat document on Additional Modalities that Further Enhance Direct Access: Terms of Reference for a Pilot Phase (published on 5 March 2015).
Last, but by no means least, we co-hosted a discussion meeting convened with the Heinrich Boell Foundation North America on 7 December 2014 (during UN Climate Conference in Lima/Peru) to discuss how the role and function of existing adaptation funding instruments might be shifting in the future with a special focus of the conversation on the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund. The event was very well received and has since led to a close collaboration with the Adaptation Fund Board Chair and Secretariat on these matters.
Last year was, by any account, an extraordinary year in the fight against climate change – not only at the international level with the Paris Agreement, but also for the ecbi.
First and foremost, support from the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) has revived our Training and Support Programme (T&SP). Managed by Achala Abeysinghe and her team at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), T&SP held its first pre-COP training workshop for junior LDC negotiators in Paris. We are very much looking forward to the future pre-COP and regional training workshops and support activities by the T&SP in Phase IV (2015-2020) of the ecbi.
We were also extremely proud about the fact that in the run-up to Paris, Achala was listed as one of the top 15 female climate champions by CNN, together with Christiana Figueres and Laurence Tubiana, and subsequently featured in a special edition on Vogue as a “climate warrior”.
Our Publications and Policy Analysis Unit, headed by Anju Sharma, has also delivered a number of important policy papers and analyses. Anju, who is also our lead analyst on in-country Enhanced Direct Access (EDA), presented a set of last year’s publications, Consolidation and devolution of national climate finance: The case of India and Engaging Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in developing countries: Enhanced Direct Access and the GCF Private Sector Facility, at a Fellowship Programme Ad hoc Seminar consultation with senior Indian policy-makers in New Delhi, to encourage a national understanding of EDA.
In addition to this, and apart from the annual Bonn Seminar and Oxford Fellowship and Seminar, the Fellowship Programme also organised a couple of Ad hoc Seminars co-hosted by the Chair of the Adaptation Fund Board and the co-chairs of the Standing Committee on Finance to facilitate a discussion between the members of these two bodies on the role of the Adaptation Fund in the new climate regime.
With the Training and Support Programme fully back on track with four training workshops, four bursaries, and support to negotiators; six seminars organised by the Fellowship Programme; and numerous policy briefs and background papers produced by the Publications and Policy Analysis Unit, 2016-2017 has been a very busy year for ecbi.
