Building institutions and capacity for transparency of climate finance: ODI's national climate finance studies by Neil Bird CCXG GF September 2016 Breakout A

1. Building institutions and capacity for
transparency of climate finance:
ODI’s national climate finance studies
CCXG Global Forum
13 September 2016

2. • ODI research in four non-
Annex I countries in Africa
• Focused on public finance
within the national
budgetary system
• Aim of providing a first
approximation of climate
change relevant public
spending across the whole of
the economy
• Purpose to explore
coherence between national
policy objectives and public
spending
• Very different objective to
monitoring financial
resources received in BURs

3. ODI studies on climate finance
Uganda Tanzania Ethiopia Ghana
no BUR no BUR no BUR BUR 2015

4. Key messages from research
1. ‘Climate finance’ is an indefinite subject matter,
which places a premium on analysis and skill sets
from within academic communities
2. Timely analyses of spending on climate-related
activities will only be possible if a system to identify
climate spending is put in place
3. All public climate spending needs to be identified, not
only that which passes through the national budget
4. Major skills improvement programmes on climate
change planning, expenditure management and
reporting should be implemented

5. Data collection – some challenges
• In the absence of a national
definition of what constitutes
climate finance, consensus
building before & during data
collection is necessary
• Cross-cutting impact of climate
change precludes using sector
spending as a proxy measure
• No clear institutional home for
data collection – lack of clarity
over mandates
• No existing tools within public
finance systems to identify
relevant expenditures

6. Reporting on climate finance
• At the national level, limited
public awareness of climate
change reduces national demand
for reporting on public finances
• The most developed form of
public financial reporting is the
national budget, but climate
finance is not recognised as a
category of expenditure
• Transparency is constrained by
limited disaggregation in budget
reporting
• Actual annual spend of
international climate finance is
not publicly reported in country

7. Reviewing climate finance
• Should public expenditure reviews
be institutionalised – if so, what is
the purpose and which national
institution should take the lead?
• As the level of public expenditure
increases, expect greater calls for
review by national audit
organizations
• Parliamentary Committees offer
one institutional setting for public
expenditure reviews

8. For more information:
n.bird@odi.org.uk