You can watch the GCF B44 proceedings live and on demand here: https://www.greenclimate.fund/boardroom/meeting/b44
Full transcript of the interventions by the GCF Observer Network are available here: https://www.gcfwatch.org/resources/board-meeting-resources/44th-board-meeting-of-the-green-climate-fund-gcf
Day 1 | March 25, 2026
The 44th Board Meeting (B44) of the Green Climate Fund is happening from March 25 to 28, 2026, in Songdo, South Korea. This is the first Board Meeting of the year, as well as the first Board Meeting since the United States withdrew from many international conventions and agreements, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), last January 7.
The Co-Chair from Sweden, Leif Holmberg, presided over the Opening of the Meeting at 10:33 AM KST. He welcomed participants to the meeting and acknowledged the new Board Members (BM) who were joining for the first time (see full list of Board Members here).
The Board swiftly adopted without comments the Agenda of B44 and Report of B43, and noted also without comments the Decisions Proposed Between B43 and B44 (which included two rounds of Accreditation of Observer Organizations approved on December 31, 2025, and March 16, 2026).
The Board proceeded to consider the Report on the Activities of the Co-Chairs, which would include a decision to hold two Board retreats as preparatory dialogues in the leadup to discussions on the updated Strategic Plan for the GCF 2028-2031 (USP-3). The BM from Spain suggested that future meetings or retreats be held virtually to maximize participation while minimizing cost. The suggestion to make other meetings virtual would be reiterated throughout the day by several other BMs.
The Co-Chair from Sweden then suspended the agenda item in favor of discussing a related agenda item: the Co-Chairs’ Roadmap to the Updated Strategic Plan for the GCF 2028-2031 (USP-3). The Co-Chair clarified that this would give added context to the Report on the Activities of the Co-Chairs which the Board will return to later. Alain Beauvillard, the Director of Strategy, Policy, and Innovation of the GCF Secretariat, discussed the Roadmap, and explained that the Secretariat will be gathering inputs from key stakeholders in a variety of ways (including survey, informal focus group discussions, and open call for written submissions) over the course of April and May 2026. The Secretariat will also conduct a series of workshops with Board Members in between Board Meetings with the view of adopting USP-3 by B47 or B48, then holding the Pledging Conference before B49, where decisions on Work Programme and Budget will be made.
Tara Daniel, the CSO Active Observer from Developed Countries, stressed the importance of making all draft submissions publicly accessible in full, following standard UNFCCC practice. The BMs from Egypt, Canada, and Gambia affirmed the need for public submissions, and the Secretariat responded that it will publish responses from the open call for submissions, and likewise prepare summary reports for the discussions from the Board retreats. The CSO AO from Developed Countries also expressed that she is looking forward to the open consultations and further engagement with the GCF Observer Network and other stakeholders. Several BMs amplified the need for open and transparent consultations.
Many BMs from both developed and developing countries welcomed the roadmap and urged the adoption of USP-3 by B47. BMs also recognized the challenging contexts in which the USP-3 process would take place, as well as the potential difficulties this may cause in raising resources. Developed country BMs, namely the BMs from Germany, Finland, and Australia, argued to expand the donor base, mobilize the private sector, and pivot to “innovative financing.” Developed country BMs also argued that the findings of the Third Performance Review of the GCF, as well as other evaluations, reviews, and surveys such as the MOPAN, have to be considered as part of the replenishment process. This position was supported by the BMs from Ghana and Egypt who noted that such practice had been observed in the past. To this point, the Secretariat replied that indeed a synthesis of the findings of the Performance Review will be presented at B45 and will be integrated into the USP-3 process.
Finally, a concern was raised by the BM from Ghana, echoed by the BM from Botswana, on whether it is really necessary to review the USP every two years, citing document B27.06, which states that the review of the Fund’s strategic vision is to be undertaken “if and as needed.” The Secretariat clarified that USP-2 will serve as the starting point for the consultations and dialogues pertaining to USP-3, and as such, to what extent the USP-2 will be updated, if at all, will depend ultimately on the discretion of the Board.
The Board moved on to discuss Regional Presence. The Co-Chair from Mali began with an overview that 47 bids to host a GCF regional office were received, indicating strong trust in the Fund and a strong vote of confidence about its relevance. The Co-Chair from Mali then handed the floor to Michelle Guertin, the Head of Board Affairs from the Secretariat, who presented the methodology of bid selection and shortlisting, as well as the “gate-based rollout” and budget implications of operationalizing regional presence. She laid out 2 scenarios for regional presence. Both Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 have the following in common:
- 1 regional office for Asia (the existing GCF headquarters in Songdo);
- 1 for Latin America and the Caribbean (Panama, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, or Chile);
- 1 for Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East (Bahrain, Oman, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Jordan);
- and 1 outpost for the Pacific (Fiji).
The only difference between the 2 scenarios would be the number of regional offices for Africa. Scenario 1 configures 2 regional offices for Africa (1 in East and Southern Africa and 1 in Central, North, and West Africa); while Scenario 2 configures only 1 regional office for Africa. She explained that Scenario 1 was intended to avoid overloading of burdens, ensure greater proximity to localities, and enable multilingual engagement. On the other hand, Scenario 2 was aimed at maximum consolidation and efficient management of the regional portfolio into a single location.
The floor agreed that consensus-building should be the main method of decision-making for this agenda item, and that other methods such as voting were only to be used when consensus could not be reached. However, the floor was divided on the two scenarios presented by the Secretariat. Developing country BMs expressed support for regional presence and reiterated the urgency of its operationalization, welcoming the Secretariat’s gate-based rollout. Many developing country BMs supported Scenario 1 which included 2 regional offices in Africa, citing that increased proximity in such a large and diverse continent was necessary to best strengthen country ownership and enhance access to climate finance. However, developed country BMs expressed preference for Scenario 2, highlighted the primacy of cost effectiveness and budget neutrality in decision-making on regional presence, and, in place of the Secretariat’s gate-based rollout, proposed a “phased approach,” which would mean establishing only 1 pilot regional office in a strategic region before establishing more regional offices.
Many BMs from across developed and developing countries raised concerns on the transparency of the Secretariat’s methodology on bid evaluation and selection. The BM from Egypt flagged that one of the bids from a country belonging to the League of Arab States was omitted from the shortlist for a regional office despite having scored high in the system. The CSO Active Observer from Developing Countries, Kairos Dela Cruz also called for the greatest transparency and the broadest stakeholder engagement possible. The Co-Chair from Mali responded that, while the Co-Chairs would have preferred to disclose all information pertaining to the bids, they deliberately instructed the Secretariat to omit some references to countries as this was explicitly requested by some of the bidding countries for security purposes.
The CSO AO from Developing Countries also highlighted the need to integrate considerations on shortlisted countries’ commitment to human rights and openness to engagement with civil society, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples. Further, some BMs conveyed their priorities for their countries/regions: the BM from Egypt underlined the need for an Arabic-speaking regional office, while the BM from Kiribati and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) stated that they wanted a regional office with delegated authority, rather than an outpost. The BM from Kiribati was supported by the BMs from Canada and the Netherlands, and to this the Executive Director responded that the Secretariat remains committed to the mandate of the GCF to prioritize SIDS, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and African countries, as well as to the aims of regional presence. The Executive Director also assured that the outpost in the Pacific would be operationally focused on the Pacific, and explained that the only difference between a regional office and an outpost would be the presence of the Regional Director.
The Board then moved to consider the Evaluations Conducted by the Independent Evaluation Unit (IEU), beginning with the IEU Evaluation of the Simplified Approval Process (SAP) presented by Dr. Marco D’errico and Andreas Reumann of the IEU. The evaluation concluded that the SAP has become operationally inefficient and unfit-for-purpose in simplifying access, and has become indistinguishable from the regular funding proposal approval process in terms of procedure. Though the evaluation also found that the SAP has substantially helped develop the confidence, capacity, and network of DAEs in accessing climate finance, it said that this impact was unintended and representative of a departure from the SAP’s core objective. The IEU recommended to the Board to discontinue the SAP and expedite the launch of a new access modality tailored to vulnerable countries and communities.
Board Members were in agreement of the importance to learn from the evaluation, but were divided on whether to discontinue and replace the SAP, or retain and reform it. Some BMs, including the BMs from Australia, Finland, and Kiribati, argued that the SAP’s failure to deliver greater accessibility and efficiency cannot be addressed by incremental reforms. Others argued that doing away with the SAP and replacing it entirely was premature and would consume considerable time and energy, while strengthening the SAP would build on existing gains and enable continuity of access especially for capacity-constrained national DAEs. BMs requested the Secretariat to prepare a plan for improving the SAP based on learnings from the IEU evaluation, emphasizing the recommendation to delegate approval of SAP projects to the Secretariat.
The CSO AO from Developed Countries intervened in favor of retaining the SAP. She flagged the flawed methodology of the evaluation, which featured a wide imbalance between IAE and DAE respondents, and argued that the inefficiencies of the SAP are attributable not to the modality but to the broader structures of the Fund. She was also vocal in supporting the positive elements of the evaluation such as its recommendation to pivot to locally-driven and tested solutions. The evaluation was noted by the Board.
In the interest of time, the Board skipped the consideration of the IEU Evaluation of the GCF’s Approach to Country Ownership, as well as the Report on the Activities of the Independent Units. Instead, it moved on to the Consideration of the Independent Redress Mechanism Compliance Report C-0009, which was a deliberation on 2 grievance cases in Egypt concerning FP039, agreed by the Board to be discussed in a closed session for confidentiality reasons.
Another matter discussed by the Board was Review of Committees, which was suspended for the day. The Board is set to discuss these agenda items on another day this B44.
The session concluded at 5:48PM KST.
