UNOPS Water and Energy Cluster (WEC) supports the design and management of multi-stakeholder initiatives by providing services in financial and grant management, procurement, human resources, and project management. The cluster has supported projects in the areas of water resource management, climate change adaptation, mitigation and transparency, energy access and distribution and environmental conservation under the Paris Agreement. The WEC has also supported operations and financial management services, in Vienna, the rest of the ECR region and beyond. The main partners include UN agencies, bilateral agreements (with the Nordics, Germany, and Italy), the Green Climate Fund and several NGOs (such as CIFF and CWF).
Background on Green Climate Fund (GCF)
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has established a funding programme, the Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme and Project Preparation Facility (RPSP/PPF), to assist developing countries in accessing funding from the GCF for their climate resilient and low emission transformation, and to enhance ownership of the countries’ envisaged low carbon trajectory. To meet this objective, the RPSP/PPF project aims to maximize the GCF’s effectiveness through empowering developing countries in the following activities:
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Engaging across governments at various levels, and with civil society and private sector stakeholders
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Developing strategic frameworks for engagement with the Fund
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Support for accreditation and accreditation direct access entities
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Formulation of national adaptation plans and/or other adaptation planning processes
GCF has selected UNOPS to provide grants management support on their behalf, to Delivery Partners globally that wish to obtain support from the RPSP/PPF programme. The Grant Management Services that UNOPS will be providing is captured in the Project Agreement, signed by GCF and UNOPS on 28 February 2018.
The Project Agreement outlines a clear division of responsibilities between the GCF and UNOPS concerning the management of Grant Management Services for the RPSP/PPF projects. GCF defines and approves the scope of each grant, including the budget and assesses the Delivery Partners’ substantive and financial management capacity. UNOPS issues the grant agreement, sets up the monitoring plan against agreed deliverables and effects payments. As of November 2020, UNOPS is providing Grant Management Services to approximately 100 Readiness and PPF projects globally.
As a separate work stream, UNOPS is also providing advisory services for Financial Management Capacity Assessments (FMCA) of grant recipients to the GCF. These services will be provided through a separate UNOPS Team.
To provide the Grant Management Services, UNOPS has established a dedicated project team (GCF Project Team) within WEC, based in Copenhagen. A Project Manager, a Grant Associate and a Senior Grants Assistant have been recruited to manage the strategic and day-to-day work of the GCF Project Team, working independently to ensure that the project with GCF is implemented within the agreed scope, timelines and budget, and in line with the UNOPS mandate, mission and vision. Considering the expected increase of workload that the GCF Project Team will be facing in the near future due to the COVID-19 impact additional capacity in the form of an Intern is required.