Global EbA Fund to support Catalytic Projects

Deadline: 15-Sep-23

The Global EbA Fund is pleased to announce a call for applications to support catalytic projects that help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.

Strategic Objectives of the Fund have been defined as follows:

• Strategic Objective 1: To build awareness and understanding of the critical role of natural assets in underpinning resilience, expand the knowledge and evidence base to help make the case for working with people and nature, and enhance institutional capacities for mainstreaming EbA into national plans and policy frameworks and vertical integration and alignment of EbA across sectors.
• Strategic Objective 2: To address planning and other governance gaps in policy and regulatory environments to increase the attractiveness and feasibility of using and upscaling ecosystem-based approaches for climate change adaptation.
• Strategic Objective 3: To expand access to sustainable short- and long-term finance mechanisms for applying and scaling up ecosystem-based approaches for climate change adaptation, including the incentivisation of private sector investment in EbA and reducing EbA’s dependence on high management capacity and continuous financial input.

Action Pillars

• Pillar 1: Levers for catalytic change
  • A catalytic intervention is defined as “a targeted intervention that leads to a transformative shift at a systemic level at either global, regional, national, or sub-national scale”.
  • Lever for change is defined as “an area of work that has the potential to deliver wide-ranging positive change beyond its immediate focus”
• Pillar 2: Functional Data and Science
  • This involves taking a data or science-driven approach to promote EbA action. It may involve extracting information and insights from data to make a case for mainstreaming EbA and to inform decision making.
• Pillar 3: Innovation for Adaptation
  • Innovative projects on EbA are the ones that are yet to be proven, are at the initial stages of development, or are yet to be tested in a different context and can take the shape of an approach, a process, a practical tool or an application. It is based on horizontal and collaborative working practices that consider a diverse range of views and the context in which the innovation is taking place.

Funding Information

• Global EbA Fund grants range from USD 50,000 to USD 250,000, with an encouraged duration of up to 24 months.

What they Fund?

• The Global EbA Fund is a catalytic funding mechanism that supports projects that aim to create enabling environments for the uptake and mainstreaming of Ecosystem-based Adaptation to climate change.
• All proposed projects requesting funding must clearly contribute to one of the Global EbA Fund Strategic Objectives as well as fall under a maximum of two of the three action pillars.
• Projects must not focus primarily on field implementation in the scope of the proposal. Field interventions are allowed if clearly justified.
• Overall, while the Fund’s strategic objectives define the overarching aim and direction for the projects – the “What” – the action pillars focus on “How” these can be reached within the scope of the Fund.
• In summary, they support projects that…
  • contribute to an enabling environment for the implementation of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change and ultimately aligns with the Friends of EBA EbA Qualification Criteria & Quality Standards.
  • result in catalytic impact and/or are innovative1, such as by piloting innovative approaches for EbA, removing barriers from upscaling EbA interventions at the policy or landscape levels, strategic and focused EbA policy mainstreaming, supporting innovative finance mechanisms for EbA, incentivising private sector investment in EbA, and supporting unlikely matches between partners; shifting business models.
  • add value to or upscale existing work. Projects should fill a gap in existing work, address a knowledge gap, contribute to policy upscaling, enhance the impact of an investment in EbA, and/or serve to develop a larger proposal for another funding mechanism. Projects should leverage existing knowledge, standards, partnerships, experiences, and best practices or fill gaps therein to facilitate the creation of enabling environment for increased uptake and/or impact of EbA. Global EbA Fund projects should not be standalone interventions. As such, projects must not focus primarily on field implementation in the scope of the proposal, though field implementation may be a component if clearly justified.
  • prioritise project sustainability and financial continuity. The project should have a clear plan for how results will be maintained and developed past the end of the funding period. This should include environmental, infrastructural, institutional, social and financial sustainability considerations as applicable. If follow-up(s) to the proposed project will require a budget and/or time frame outside of that offered by the Fund – for instance, if the project will develop a larger project proposal to a different funding mechanism – the applicant should clearly articulate anticipated funding options, including any market-based, private sector, or public sector funding opportunities. Exit strategy for the project is a requirement.

Eligibility Criteria

• Projects may have a global, thematic, regional and/or country-specific focus.
• If the project has a country-specific focus, it must be targeted to one or more countries which are eligible for official development assistance (ODA) based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) list at the time of application.
• Regional/multi-country projects, particularly projects designed to foster regional exchange and achieve regional-scale impacts, are eligible. For multi-country projects, which are projects involving activities in more than one country, all of the countries must be ODA-eligible.
• Projects with a global or thematic focus, not targeted to a specific region or country, are also eligible.
• The Fund seeks diverse applicants with relevant experience and local partnerships and presence.
• In line with current IKI policies, the Fund will not grant directly to government partners.
• UNEP and IUCN offices are not currently eligible.
• The Fund encourages project durations of up to 24 months, but may consider up to 36 months. Additional justification is required for projects seeking longer than 24 months.

For more information, visit Global EbA Fund.