Multilateral Dev’t Banks agree common reporting method on climate change adaptation finance

Six multilateral development banks (MDBs) have agreed on various protocols and processes for adaptation of finance reporting on climate change, a statement from the African Development Bank (AfDB) May 27, 2012 has said.

The Banks are the AfDB, the Asian Development Bank , the European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Bank Group (which includes the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD, and the International Finance Corporation, IFC).

They believe that the move is “critical to the MDBs’ efforts to monitor and evaluate financial resources for climate change”.

They made the agreement at the MDB Adaptation Finance Tracking Workshop held May 22 on the sidelines of the Climate Change Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Bonn, Germany.

“The MDBs agreed on the adaptation concept that they will adopt, as well as the high level principles of the joint methodology, and a roadmap to test and disclose the methodology by the 2012 UN Climate Change Conference (COP18) in late November,” the AfDB said.

According to the AfDB, the methodology will continue to be refined and tested on MDBs’ 2011 portfolios to ready it for presentation at COP18 in Qatar from November 26 to December 7, 2012.

Commenting on the move, Mafalda Duarte, AfDB Chief Climate Change Specialist said “Having a joint MDB methodology for tracking aid spending that contributes to climate change adaptation means the MDBs and development partners can engage in substantive analysis of climate finance. We will be better able to measure, report and verify climate financial flows and the results they support.”

Since November 2010, a special MDB working group has focused on climate financing tracking, with the AfDB said to be coordinating the efforts on the adaptation.

By Ekow Quandzie