• -FAQs About the GEF's Work on Adaptation
• -FAQs about the LDCF
• -LDCF Fact Sheet
• -LDCF and SCCF Council Meeting Documents 

	Financing Adaptation Action
	Linking Adaptation to Development
Other publications on Climate Change
Approved LDCF Project Proposals:   Bangladesh Benin Bhutan BurkinaFaso Cambodia CapeVerde Djibouti DRCongo Eritrea Gambia Haiti Malawi Mauritania Niger Samoa Sierra  Sudan Tuvalu Zambia   Consult the GEF Project Database for a complete list of Adaptation Projects

Contact the 
Climate Change Team

The GEF supports interventions that increase resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change on vulnerable countries, sectors, and communities.

As the financial mechanism of the Climate Convention, GEF allocates and disburses about $250 million dollars per year in projects in energy efficiency, renewable energies, and sustainable transportation. Moreover, it manages two special funds under the UNFCCC — the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund.

The Climate Change Funds: Linking Adaptation to Development

Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund: In 2001, the Climate Convention established the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). The LDCF is designed to support projects addressing the urgent and immediate adaptation needs of the least developed countries (LDCs) as identified by their National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPAs). The SCCF is designed to finance activities in four areas. For both these funds, adaptation to climate change is a top priority and the largest majority of the funds' resources are allocated to concrete adaptation projects.

The GEF was asked to manage these funds, expanding its mandate on adaptation from supporting studies, assessments, and initial pilot projects to financing the implementation of concrete actions on the ground. The LDCF and the SCCF, which are managed separately from the GEF Trust Fund, have their own rules and procedures. Financing modalities and rules of procedure have been modified to respond to convention guidance and to ensure effectiveness at the operational level. All these funds are active and operational.

Several rules and principles that apply to the GEF Trust Fund, such as the incremental cost and its relation to the generation of global environmental benefits, as well as the Resource Allocation Framework (RAF), do not apply to the new funds.

Link to Development: The adverse impacts of climate change affect core development needs, including access to drinking or irrigation water, food security, and public health. Adaptation is, therefore, part of development and cannot be addressed in isolation. Projects financed under the LDCF and SCCF have clear development objectives, such as ensuring food security, access to water for drinking and irrigation, disaster prevention, and control of diseases spreading because of climate change, such as malaria and dengue fever. In projects supported under the LDCF and SCCF, climate change risks and adaptation interventions are integrated into national development policies, plans, programs, projects, and actions.  The intervention must be consistent with the development priority of each vulnerable country, taking into account national circumstances and economic and social priorities. Projects build on good practices to cope with climate change, including variability, that are already part of economic and social development patterns and customs of vulnerable countries.