On 16 June 2022 at Kigali Serena Hotel, the public, private sectors, Green Climate Fund (GCF) accredited entities and development partners have joined in the structure dialogue, with the aim to discuss, understand and assess the financial needs of Rwanda, as well as to understand how these financial resources can be effectively mobilized. Specifically, this dialogue was a good opportunity to increase the engagement between the National Designated Authority and GCF accredited entities.

Through the opening remarks, Mr Faustin Munyazikwiye, the Deputy Director General of REMA, highlighted that, “There is no doubt that addressing the impact of climate change is at high cost, and our country is vulnerable to the impact of climate change. In this respect, Climate finance is needed for mitigation, and equally important for adaptation to the adverse effects of a changing climate, because our economy can only prosper if nature also prospers”

The GCF representative in his remarks emphasized about the active participation stressing out that all ideas and contribution made towards the dialogue will be of great help toward constructive progress of GCF projects development keeping in mind the national priorities.

In this dialogue, the GCF country programme was presented; it is worth noting that the country program revision was aiming at matching the Country Programme with Rwanda’s updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and other relevant key national documents. In the dialogue the investment priority areas were presented including the mitigation actions such as the rrenewable energy generation, energy efficiency, efficient public transport, integrated waste management, and integrated Forest management.

While the priority areas of investment in adaptation, there are the integrated water resource management, integrated disaster risk management, sustainable agricultural intensification, Integrated Sustainable land-use planning and management, and climate proof infrastructure

Other investment areas are categorized as the crosscutting activities including the sustainable tourism development (payment for ecosystem services wildlife protection) and housing/green cities.

Other discussion were convened through the panel session, where the panelists were the representatives from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), Private Sector Federation (PSF), and the Ministry of Environment (MoE).

The dialogue stressed out the need to strengthen the access to climate change finance of which in turn would be used to address impacts of climate change not forgetting the country priority to be able to reduce greenhouse emission and implement the adaptation actions by 2030.

The dialogue also brought attention to the need of further engagement and commitment from the private sector and other NGO’s towards enhancement of climate adaptation strategies not forgetting the need for proper allocation of funds.

It was of quite interest to note that GCF second phase is about to commence and it is important to put in place various tools and templates most especially on capacity building to help various key players to get involved in mitigating and adapting to the climate change and get more involved with GCF.

Through the discussions, the key main challenges were highlighted such as capacity building in mobilizing the required fund, also the technology transfer. In addition, the continuous engagement and showcase the work achieved was indicated as challenge.

In the closing, the Deputy Director General acknowledged the stakeholders who attended this dialogue, which is a way to share lesson learned and the key forward points to be implemented in the journey of mobilizing the USD 11 Billion by 2030 as highlighted in the Rwanda Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).