Grants for the application of ICAT policy assessment guides

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.
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.

The ICAT series of policy assessment guides provides a stepwise and integrated approach for estimating the greenhouse gas, sustainable development and transformational impacts of countries’ climate policies and actions. The guides are free to use and accessible on the ICAT website, and include:

• five guides to assess GHG Impacts in different areas and sectors (agriculture, renewable energy, transport pricing, forestry, and buildings efficiency);

• three cross-cutting impact assessment guides (sustainable development, transformational change, and non-state and subnational actions), and;

• two process guides (stakeholder participation, and technical review).

In 2018, in conjunction with the development of the guides, ICAT issued a call for expressions of interest from organizations to apply the series of policy assessment guides. A total of eight pilot case studies were conducted with different organizations under technical guidance from ICAT implementing partners. Some of these case studies were published on the ICAT website.

Since they were first published, the guides have been well received and used by a wide range of developing countries and there has been strong interest for several of the guides. However, they have rarely been used to assess policies or actions with a view to using the documented evidence to raise resources, or in the design of policies. As it has now been five years since they were developed, and the implementation processes of the Paris Agreement has considerably advanced, ICAT is now looking to develop another round of case studies to expand the knowledge base of possible applications of the guides and their benefits for countries.

ICAT is seeking organizations (governmental entities or non-governmental organizations, such as research institutions or grass roots organizations) to apply one or more of the above-mentioned guides to individual projects in developing countries over a six month period, starting no later than Q1 2024.