ESCWA, in partnership with UN-Habitat, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) –City Climate Finance Gap Fund Partnership (Gap Fund Partnership), and in collaboration with the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities (APLA), organized the Climate Finance Pathway Forum to connect municipalities from Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria with leading climate adaptation funders.
Held on 10 and 11 February in Amman, the Forum brought together national government representatives, municipal officials, climate experts, banks and development partners from across the Arab region. Tthirteen municipalities were selected through a competitive process from more than 140 municipal applicants.
The Forum enabled each city to present their challenges, including drought and extreme temperatures, to potential donors and pitch project proposals designed to address them. Several financing entities expressed interest in follow-up discussions, marking a significant step toward structured funding partnerships.
The Forum marked the culmination of a 6-month mentorship programme supporting the development of city level climate adaptation project proposals.
In her opening remarks, Director of the Arab Centre for Climate Change Policies and Chief of the Climate Change and National Resource Sustainability Cluster at ESCWA Carol Chouchani Cherfane highlighted the adaptation finance gap, noting that adaptation projects in the Arab region received less than half the climate finance allocated to mitigation over the past 15 years. “Most climate finance directed to the water sector in the region is focused on large-scale water supply and sanitation projects,” she stated.
The Forum forms part of the “Empowering Municipalities in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Jordan to Access Climate Finance” training programme, under the “Resilient Water Solutions Against Climate Change in Jordan and Lebanon” project, funded by the Adaptation Fund and implemented by UN-Habitat in partnership with ESCWA, UNICEF, and national partners in both countries.
