UNDP’s Climate Promise

UNDP launched the Climate Promise at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019. The Climate Promise supports over 100 countries to enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Delivered in collaboration with a wide variety of partners, it is the world’s largest offer of support for the enhancement of climate pledges.

While climate change poses a risk for everyone and threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development gains, the poorest, marginalized, and most vulnerable populations are disproportionately burdened. UNDP advocates for an inclusive approach that supports whole-of-society ownership, advances equality, and strengthens social and environmental sustainability. UNDP is leveraging its extensive climate change portfolio, its Country Office network and global policy services to provide thematic technical support to countries and ensure that NDCs are fully aligned with national sustainable development priorities.

UNDP offers its Climate Promise support under five service lines that respond to major areas of demand from developing countries and can be tailored and scaled up for maximum impact to fit specific country needs:

Building political will & societal ownership at national and sub-national levels
Review, align & update existing targets, policies & measures
Incorporate new sectors and/or greenhouse gases
Assess costs and investment opportunities
Monitor progress & strengthen transparency
 
The UNDP is also focused on providing an array of services to the government and private sector for financing of the SDGs and particularly financing of climate change actions. These services are across a range of strategic interventions that include systemic integration of SDGs into public finance and creation of opportunities for innovative and private sector finance for SDGs including climate change. There is an increased realization of the importance of the NDCs being reflected in the government planning and budgeting systems for a cohesive approach.

In Asia and the Pacific, 27 countries are currently supported through the Climate Promise and one of key emerging thematic areas of interest to many countries in the region is climate change adaptation reflecting the high level of vulnerability of the region to a range of climate induced risks. 25 countries in the region have expressed interest in receiving support on improving their adaptation actions and much of the support is centered around strengthening the linkages with the ongoing national efforts on National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), Adaptation Communications (AC) and/or Long-Term Strategies.

Given the overwhelming number of countries that have included adaptation in their NDC enhancement efforts, this consultancy is geared towards supporting at identifying areas of joint collaboration at the country level with UNEP and FAO for the climate promise and NAPs and at regional level peer to peer exchange/sharing for building resilience at both national levels as well as local and community level in partnership with UN sister agencies such as UN Environment and FAO. It also brings in a strong emphasis on integrating climate change adaptation concerns into COVID-19 responses.