The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread demand and supply shock to the economic systems of countries around the world. While some countries are better equipped than others, there is a need to tackle a range of issues across the economy to ensure a robust recovery from the economic and social impacts of this unprecedented crisis.
Several countries have made commitments towards ambitious climate change goals. However, for various reasons like focus on short-term priorities, resource constraints, among others, they are not able to prioritize green elements in their pandemic response plans. Massive development assistance is urgently needed to support client countries to rebuild for a greener and more resilient future.
Given the unique challenges of the COVID crisis, the CIF COVID-19 Technical Assistance Response Initiative for green and climate resilient recovery was launched in December 2020 with support from the governments of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland.
The initiative offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to structurally transform economies while reducing the risks of climate change and realizing the potential of sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries.
Through both mitigation and resilience actions and rapid response on the ground and in delivery, the Initiative will aim to ensure:
SCOPE OF ACTIVITIES
Potential activities supported under this initiative could include those at both pre-lending and lending stages of operations.
Non-lending operations: Countries with sound analytical grounding and strong capacities have had a wider uptake for greener reforms than those without. Support will be offered for things like building technical and institutional capacities, analytical frameworks etc. to help countries develop their low-carbon and climate-resilient pathways.
Lending operations: Support for both policy lending as well as for investment operations being designed to re-build different sectors of the economies.
Other activities may also include support for knowledge sharing like country/ regional-level exchanges to share lessons learnt from designing/ implementing green and resilient recovery reforms, among others.
Moreover, the initiative encourages development of local and inclusive considerations as well as active local stakeholder consultation process, as the pandemic is exacerbating specific risks for women and threatening progress made on gender equality.
By making technical assistance available, the program will provide further incentive to governments, businesses and citizens to rebuild for a green and resilient future.
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