In Brazil, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social – BNDES) has been accredited to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Approved by the Board of the international fund at a meeting held on May 8, 2019, at the institution's headquarters in Songdo, South Korea, the GCF accreditation is valid for up to five years.
Created in 2010 by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) aims to enable projects to respond to the challenges of climate change in developing countries. The fund currently has US$10.3 billion in grants from more than 40 countries, committed to more than 100 approved projects.
New contributions from donors are envisaged and, in view of commitments made by countries in international climate agreements, the GCF is expected to become the principal international mechanism for financing climate-related projects.
BNDES was qualified in the socio-environmental risk category A, a higher modality, which allows the Bank to access the resources of the GCF to finance or support investments of various sizes via equity, guarantees, non-reimbursable resources or loans. The rules of the fund also provide resources to develop studies and projects to adapt to climate change and to mitigate its effects.
The initiative has 88 accredited institutions, of which only 24 have been qualified in the same category that the BNDES starts to integrate – among them are the German development bank KfW, the French Development Agency (AFD), the Andean Development Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank.
