Technical support to Regional Climate Action Transparency Hub (ReCATH) in Central Africa

The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT)

The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency was established in 2015 at the COP that adopted the Paris Agreement to support implementation of the Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework. The Initiative works with over 50 developing countries ranging from large countries, like Nigeria, to small islands, such as Antigua & Barbuda and has initiated three Regional Climate Action Transparency Hubs (ReCATHs) in Central Africa, Central Asia and Central America. .

ICAT provides countries with tailored support and practical tools and methodologies to build robust transparency frameworks needed for effective climate action in sync with national development priorities. The projects ICAT supports relate to: building or enhancing transparency frameworks for mitigation; building a monitoring and evaluation approach for adaptation; building or enhancing frameworks to track progress in implementing nationally determined contributions; assessing the impacts of climate policies; estimating or enhancing projections of greenhouse gases; integrating and/or aggregating climate actions at the subnational level and by non-State actors; building a tracking system for just transition processes; establishing or enhancing a climate data system; and putting in place a framework to track climate finance.

To support these areas, ICAT offers a suite of practical, open-source tools and methodologies to provide effective support to the transparency efforts of countries around the world.

ICAT is an unincorporated multi-stakeholder partnership steered by the Donor Steering Committee (DSC), conformed by its donors, Austria; Canada; Germany; Italy; the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF); and ClimateWorks Foundation (CWF), and includes the UNFCCC Secretariat as the dedicated UN body with a climate change policy mandate, and UNOPS as an ex-officio member. The Initiative is managed by UNOPS on behalf of the DSC. Within UNOPS, the ICAT Secretariat manages ICAT day-to-day activities, coordinating and guiding the work of the implementing partners.

Background

The Regional Climate Action Transparency Hub (ReCATH) for Central African States was established in July 2021 as ICAT’s first regional hub. Hosted by the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in collaboration with ICAT, the Hub aims to create a regional network, build a centre of excellence and support member countries in their efforts to improve transparency in climate action by building robust Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) frameworks. A Steering Committee (COPIL) was set up by ECCAS to oversee the overall mission, composed of the national focal points for all ECCAS countries.

All the countries that are part of ECCAS have ratified the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to report on a range of information relating to their emissions/removals, adaptation and climate impacts, support for climate action and on progress with meeting their nationally determined contributions, biennially under the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) through Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs). In addition to reporting, it is becoming increasingly important for countries to inform national and international decision makers, investors and supporters on progress and ambition with climate action. To do so, countries need to have operational institutional arrangements and systems to measure, report and verify GHG emissions and removals and measures to reduce emissions and enhance removals and adapt to climate impacts. MRV, or transparency, is important as a basis for effective climate action across all sectors, including forestry, agriculture, energy, waste and industrial processes. Transparency should also encompass socio-economic information to inform policy making about sustainable development impacts of policies and actions.

Objective

In this context ICAT is looking for a technical implementing partner to provide technical support to the Regional Climate Action Transparency Hub in its activities and capacity building support to the countries of the region based on their priorities and needs with the aim of equipping countries with capacity to build transparency frameworks that help them effectively advance their climate policies and actions and fulfil their transparency commitments under international frameworks, in particular the Enhanced Transparency Framework of the Paris Agreement.