Enhanced Direct Access (EDA) Projects

The Adaptation Fund Medium-Term Strategy 2018 – 2022 (MTS) was approved by the Adaptation Fund Board (the AFB) in October 2017 and focusses on three main pillars: Action; Innovation; and Learning. The MTS implementation plan outlines expected results, outputs, and activities that will be undertaken to put the MTS into action, indicators for measuring performance and a tentative budget and timeline.

The “Action” pillar includes three expected result areas (ERs), the first (ER1) being that: Vulnerability is reduced, resilience strengthened, and adaptive capacity is enhanced. Under ER1 it is expected that Enhanced Direct Access involving sub-national institutions and civil society organizations would be implemented through a dedicated EDA window, making use of the Fund’s experience in Direct Access (DA) and Enhanced Direct Access (EDA). Following Decision B.35.b/10 by the AFB to approve the funding window, the dedicated EDA grant will be implemented as a pilot during the implementation period of the Fund’s MTS.

The funding available through the EDA window is up to US$ 5 million per country. The funding window does not count against the cap of funding for each country that was established by the Board at its thirty-sixth meeting in 2021 and is currently set at US $20 million per country.

It is expected that EDA will offer opportunities that help build the capacity of local organizations to programme adaptation finance and design and implement their own projects through locally led action.

Call for Proposals

The AFB invites eligible Parties to the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement to submit proposals for EDA grants. The grants are available only to accredited national implementing entities (NIEs) of the Adaptation Fund. Proposals may be submitted using the one-step (submission of a fully developed proposal) or two-step (submission of a concept for endorsement by the AFB first, followed by submission of a fully developed proposal) project approval process and will be considered under the Fund’s regular review cycle and approval process for concrete projects and programmes.

Objectives

The objective of Enhanced Direct Access under the Fund is to empower developing country recipients of international climate finance beyond what can be achieved through the Direct Access modality alone, by devolving decision-making in the programming of internationally allocated funds to the national and sub-national levels. This means that the screening, review and selection of projects would be done at the national and sub-national level with stronger stakeholder engagement in the decision-making on proposed resilience initiatives and their financing at those levels.

As EDA specific projects are determined at the country-level through specific requests and proposals made by local beneficiaries at the sub-national level, it also offers opportunities for: piloting innovation built on bottom-up approaches through local knowledge and locally led action; generating additional knowledge for replication; and promoting the development of public private partnerships.

Eligibility

NIEs applying for Enhanced Direct Access grants must have an accreditation status of “Accredited” with the AF.

How it works

At its thirty-sixth meeting the AFB set a funding envelope of US$ 20 million for the funding of Enhanced Direct Access projects between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022 (AFB Decision B.36/2) which will be reviewed on an annual basis. If the total amount of requested funding by NIEs through the EDA modality goes beyond the provisioned funding envelope during a fiscal year, the proposals submitted by those entities and recommended for approval would be placed in a pipeline for consideration in the next funding envelope.

The submission, review and approval process for EDA grants will follow a similar process to that which applies to single-country concrete adaptation projects and programmes under the Fund. NIEs can follow the regular two-step or one-step process depending on individual circumstances. Proposal submission timelines with respect to Board meetings or intersessional review cycles are similar to those of regular concrete projects and programmes and will be posted on the AF website. The next submission deadline can be found here.

How to Apply

To apply for an EDA grant, please find below the application form, letter of endorsement template, and instruction manual on how to complete the project proposal template. The EDA grant application form must be submitted together with a signed letter of endorsement by the Designated Authority (DA) to the Adaptation Fund. Additional project proposal material to consider can be found here.

The length of the proposal should not exceed 50 pages for the project/programme concept including its annexes, and 100 pages for the fully developed project document and 100 pages for its annexes.

Submissions should be sent to afbsec@adaptation-fund.org with copy to sdobardzic@adaptation-fund.org and agomes3@adaptation-fund.org.

Attachments

Attachment Type Size
Letter of Endorsement by DA DOC 92 KB
Template for Project Proposal DOCX 94 KB
Instructions for Preparing a Request for EDA Project PDF 207 KB