The Foundation is a winner of the GEF Adaptation Innovation Program

© Didier Gentilhomme

The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation is one of 10 winners of the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) Adaptation Innovation Program. This competition provides seed funding for innovative initiatives to help vulnerable countries cope with the worsening climate crisis.

The GEF Program: Supporting Innovations in the Face of Climate Change

The GEF Adaptation Innovation Program accelerates private sector innovation and action for vulnerable populations. Open to direct submissions from technology and private sector innovators, this program supports financially viable and scalable solutions for adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change.

The GEF has announced 10 new winners, among the 418 applicants, of its Adaptation Innovation Program. Each winning concept will be eligible for grants from the Special Climate Change Fund [Special Climate Change Fund – SCCF] and the Least Developed Countries Fund [Least Developed Countries Fund – LDCF], hosted by the GEF, which have provided targeted financing for climate resilience projects in developing and low-income countries over the past 20 years.

The Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation project

There is currently little public and private funding for climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation, particularly in the inclusive finance sector. One of the main reasons is that the sector lacks a common framework and indicators to assess the opportunity for financial service providers (FSPs) to develop and scale this type of offering.

In coordination with five other organizations, including its partner YAPU Solutions, the Foundation's project aims to provide public and private stakeholders with common intervention frameworks, indicators, and specific products to help them coordinate their methodology and activities, and deliver concrete solutions. This will enable FSPs to receive financial, technical, and technological support to support their clients' climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation projects, particularly the most vulnerable: small producers and rural communities.

The approach builds on existing and proven project methodologies United Nations Environment Programme's "Microfinance for Ecosystem-Based Adaptation" and on the Green Index 3.0 of the action group Green Inclusive and Climate Smart Finance (GICSF)The objective is to help FSPs monitor and improve the climate change resilience and biodiversity impacts of their institutions and clients. This project builds on these preliminary experiences and aims to deploy this approach for the benefit of the entire inclusive finance sector..

“Initially, the Foundation will set up a mixed finance vehicle and pilot this three-pronged assistance program (financial, technical, and technological) with four microfinance institutions. We then hope to encourage other stakeholders to use this vehicle and the tools it offers. This is fully in line with our strategy of supporting our partners to strengthen the adaptation to climate change of smallholder farmers and rural communities.” – Eric Campos, General Delegate, Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation.

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