In recognition of the immense climate financing gap in the country, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is implementing two landmark Climate Finance Projects, namely Climate Finance PH for Nature-based Solutions and the Climate Finance Network (CFN). These two initiatives are being implemented in partnership with key government agencies and through the funding support from the Government of Canada and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (UK FCDO)

Both projects aim to leverage private sector investments in gender-responsive nature-based solutions for climate resilient technologies, innovations, practices, and approaches, which could contribute towards bridging the financing gap in the country. The climate change budget integration in the country’s Public Financial Management systems is also a key focus of these Projects. The Climate Finance PH is part of the Government of Canada’s doubling of its international climate finance support from $2.65 billion (2015-2020) to $5.3 billion (2021-2026). The CFN, on the other hand, is part of UK FCDO’s Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) Thematic Partnership Programmes. 

As part of the initiation stages of these projects, climate finance experts from the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH) undertook a week-long mission to the Philippines from 28-31 March 2023 Bilateral meetings held with key National Government Agency (NGA) partners served as learning sessions on the planned project interventions, including but not limited to sustainable and impact reporting of private sectors; results-based budgeting process; initiatives on forest carbon pricing, biodiversity tagging and offsets; among others. It also provided a platform for sharing UNDP’s work in supporting countries’ efforts on SDG Securities Framework and SDG Finance Taxonomy; and initiatives on sustainability, reporting guidelines and metrics in the region.

Global Climate Finance and Investment Specialist, Mr. Chongguang Yu, and Regional Climate Change and Innovative Finance Specialist, Dr. Qing Xu, along with members of the UNDP Philippines Climate Action Programme Team met with officials and representatives from key national government partners for the Climate Finance Projects led by Commissioner Kelvin Lester Lee and Commissioner McJill Bryant Fernandez of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Assistant Governor Lyn Javier of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Assistant Secretary Noralyn Uy of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and technical staff from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

In these meetings, the UNDP team lauded the great strides taken by the Philippine government agencies, particularly the BSP’s Sustainable Finance Framework, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Guidelines on Environmental, Social, and Governance Reporting, Green Jobs Act, and, more recently, the Sustainable Roadmap issued by the Interagency Task Force on Sustainable Finance. Worth-noting as well is the aspiration of the stakeholders to build the capacities of climate finance agents towards internalizing and implementing the various policy frameworks, toolkits, and methodologies, which have already been developed. 

Moving forward, the two Climate Finance projects will work closely with these key NGA partners, private sector, impact investors, and communities on accelerating climate finance given the country’s priorities indicated in the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Philippines Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (PBSAP).