The Global Climate Change Alliance(+) Achievements fell short of ambitions

Executive summary

I The Least Developed Countries and the Small Island Developing States contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions but are the most affected by the impacts of climate change. In 2007, the EU launched the Global Climate Change Alliance initiative to help these countries increase their resilience to the effects of climate change. In 2014, the initiative entered a second phase, the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus, covering the period 2014‑2020. The EU provided total funding of €729 million for the two phases.

II In 2020, the Commission decided not to continue the initiative for a further phase. During the 2021‑2027 period, the Commission will fund actions tackling climate change in developing countries through thematic and geographical support under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument. Our audit aimed to draw lessons from the two phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance, both for future climate change actions and for future global development initiatives. The objective of our audit was to assess whether actions achieved their intended results efficiently and whether the Commission maximised the added value of the initiative.

III Overall, we found that the initiative did not demonstrate its impact on countries’ resilience to climate change. In terms of efficiency, completed actions generally delivered their outputs, but sometimes at a high cost.

IV The initiative did not measure the improvements in the beneficiaries’ situation, nor did it focus sufficiently on the needs of those most affected. The cost of using new technologies made it more difficult for the poorest households to benefit from the programme. In addition, few actions included activities specifically addressing the needs of women.

V The initiative focused on building institutional capacity, but sustainability was limited due to high staff turnover. Therefore, the expected evolution from capacity building and pilot activities to more scaling-up of adaptation actions reaching more beneficiaries did not take place systematically.

VI Neither of the two phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance attracted the expected additional funding from Member States and the private sector. Despite this significant financing gap, the Commission did not revise its initial ambitious objectives over the 15‑year duration of the initiative. Furthermore, in the second phase, the Commission’s funding allocation criteria led to proportionally less support being allocated to the most vulnerable countries.

VII The Commission did not sufficiently analyse the reasonableness of the budgeted costs of most of the sampled actions. Our analysis showed that the management costs of actions varied widely, and were particularly high in the Pacific. We found that the Commission could have made savings with a more detailed analysis of the costs.

VIII Although the initiative started in 2007 and supported more than 80 countries, awareness remained limited amongst developing countries as well as in the EU Member States. This was partly because the actions funded were not distinguishable from other EU actions addressing climate change in developing countries. Moreover, the efficiency of the initiative was impacted by the complexity of its organisation, in particular the duplication of support facilities and funding streams.

IX There will be no additional phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance, but it has provided useful lessons for any other global development initiatives that the EU might implement in future.

X On the basis of these conclusions, we recommend that the Commission:

1. focus on those most affected by climate change;
2. incorporate lessons learnt into future global development initiatives.

Introduction

Climate change disproportionately affects developing countries

01 Sustainable Development Goal 13 aims to combat climate change and its impacts through both adaptation and mitigation measures. There is a particularly urgent need for adaptation action in developing countries. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges that the main mitigation efforts should take place in developed countries, where emissions per capita are higher¹.

02 The poorest and most vulnerable populations in the world are the ones hardest hit by the consequences of climate change because they live in areas more prone to flooding, landslides, drought and other disasters². Governments and societies are likely to expand adaptation and resilience measures to manage existing threats, but these measures are unlikely to be evenly distributed, leaving some populations behind³.

The Global Climate Change Alliance aimed to help the poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change

The initiative supported a wide range of countries

03 The main thematic programme channelling EU development aid to support the response to climate change was the Global Climate Change Alliance initiative launched in 2007⁴. It aimed to help the poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change increase their capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change. The initiative also aimed to help countries participate in the mitigation effort. It focused on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)⁵ and Small Island Developing States (SIDS)⁶. In 2014, the initiative entered a second phase, the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus, covering the period 2014‑2020.

04 In 2020, the Commission decided that the initiative would not be continued for a third phase with the 2021‑2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). Instead, in line with the 2021 Regulation on the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI – Global Europe), the Commission would fund actions tackling climate change in developing countries mainly through thematic and geographical support provided by the Multiannual Indicative Programmes (MIPs).

05 The initiative supported climate change actions in a wide range of countries (see Figure 1).

The initiative consisted of two components and covered several priority sectors

06 Each of the two phases of the initiative consisted of two components:

1. The global component, covering all developing countries. This component was financed by the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) and mainly funded actions covering a single country.
2. The intra-ACP component, covering African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. This component was financed by the European Development Fund (EDF) and mainly funded actions covering an entire region.

07 Two support facilities, outsourced to consortia led by environmental consultancy groups, helped the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) and the EU Delegations assist partner countries in their efforts to implement climate actions funded by the initiative:

1. The Global Support Facility supported the global strand of the initiative by promoting dialogue and exchange of experiences on climate change. It helped EU Delegations formulate climate change actions and also provided ad hoc technical assistance, i.e. support and advice for the design and implementation of climate actions in beneficiary countries. Additionally, it supported knowledge creation and dissemination and managed a collaborative platform, which contained documentation on the initiative’s programmes.
2. The Intra-ACP Support Facility supported the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) Secretariat in coordinating the Intra-ACP strand of the initiative. It also managed the Climate Support Facility, which provided technical assistance to ACP regional organisations⁷, government bodies and non-state actors. The technical assistance included activities such as feasibility studies, project identification and formulation missions, training and workshops.

08 To achieve its objective of helping countries respond to climate change, the initiative based its approach on two pillars:

1. Fostering dialogue and knowledge sharing, for example via national or international conferences and workshops.
2. Providing technical and financial support for adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk reduction measures. This support ranges from capacity building or technical assistance for national, regional or local authorities to concrete actions testing new approaches or scaling up successful pilots.

09 The initiative provided technical and financial support through actions covering a wide range of sectors (see Figure 2). The two main sectors supported were “environment and natural resources” and “agriculture and food security (including fisheries)”.

Actions were mostly implemented through UN organisations and EU Member States’ aid agencies

10 The initiative did not have its own budget line in the Commission’s accounting system. The Commission gave the Global Climate Change Alliance label to a number of climate change actions funded by the DCI and the EDF. The total funding allocated to the initiative was €728.8 million, including contributions from EU Member States. The overall allocation was €308.8 million for the first phase (2007‑2013) and €420 million for the second phase (2014‑2020) (see Figure 3).

11 Figure 4 shows the funding channelled through the main global programme and the intra-ACP programme, as well as the funding for the two support facilities. Amounts contracted to April 2022 total €587 million.

12 Actions were delivered through different implementing modalities, the main one being financing agreements with UN organisations and Member States’ development aid agencies (see Figure 5).

Audit scope and approach

Audit scope

13 As the Global Climate Change Alliance will not be continued, our audit examined how the Commission managed its two phases, in order to learn lessons for both future climate change actions and future global development initiatives. The audit aimed to assess whether funds were used efficiently and effectively, and to make recommendations for improvements for future EU actions in the area of climate change.

14 Our main audit question was whether the initiative was efficient and effective. We split this question into the following sub-questions:

• Did actions achieve their intended results efficiently?
• Did the Commission maximise the added value of the initiative?

15 We examined 14 actions: five in the Pacific, two in Bangladesh, two in Ethiopia, two in Bhutan, one in Niger, one in Cuba, and a regional action covering the whole of Africa. The total value of these actions was €95.4 million, which represents 16 % of the funds contracted under the initiative from 2007 to April 2022.

16 We selected these countries based on the amount of funding provided by the initiative, and the need to cover both global and intra-ACP components, different regions and different implementation methods. We included both closed and ongoing actions. We also assessed the contribution of the two support facilities. Table 1 and the Annex provide an overview of all 16 sampled actions.

Audit approach

17 Due to COVID‑19 travel restrictions, we could not carry out audit visits to Bhutan, Ethiopia and the Pacific as initially planned. We based our observations on the following sources of evidence:

1. A review of documentation and web-based information on climate change in developing countries.
2. A review of documentation (e.g. contracts, budgets, monitoring, final reports, evaluations) on the activities of the initiative provided by DG INTPA and the two support facilities.
3. Videoconferences with EU Delegation staff, implementing partners and beneficiaries in Ethiopia, Bhutan and the Pacific. We also held videoconferences with DG INTPA, the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the initiative’s support facilities. In addition, we had exchanges with representatives from six EU Member States and with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Partnership⁸, which helps countries access resources to accelerate climate action.
4. A survey we sent to the initiative’s focal points in 65 EU Delegations. The response rate was 86 % (56 EU Delegations). The survey included questions on the efficiency and effectiveness of actions and the strengths and weaknesses of the initiative.
5. Questionnaires sent to DG INTPA and to the two support facilities regarding the design and implementation of actions and the management of the initiative.

Observations

While the initiative focused on building capacity, there was room for reducing costs and for demonstrating its impact

18 One of the two pillars in both phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance was the provision of technical and financial support for adaptation and mitigation measures (see paragraph 08). We examined the efficiency and effectiveness of this support. In particular, we assessed whether:

1. the Commission targeted the initiative to address the needs of those directly affected by the impacts of climate change, particularly women, and scaled up successful pilot actions to enable more people to benefit;
2. management costs were reasonable to maximise the amount of support reaching recipients;
3. actions achieved their expected results;
4. actions achieved synergies, and the needs addressed continued to be met after the support had ended;
5. the initiative increased countries’ resilience to the effects of climate change.

19 Figure 6 and the Annex summarise the findings from our assessment of the 14 sampled actions at the time of our audit. We analysed sustainability only for the seven completed actions. The two support facilities are examined in paragraph 62.

The Commission did not sufficiently scale up adaptation measures and address the needs of those most affected by the impacts of climate change

20 Based on our examination of actions and programme evaluations, the replies to our survey and the discussions we held with Commission staff, EU Delegations and beneficiaries, we found that for the following reasons the initiative did not sufficiently address the needs of those directly affected by the impacts of climate change:

1. there was no systematic shift from capacity building (e.g. training in integrating climate change into national and local plans, workshops for key staff to increase their understanding of climate change, etc.) and pilot activities towards more scaling-up of concrete adaptation actions directly supporting the population, as envisaged in the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus concept note⁹;
2. there was not enough focus on women, even though they were disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change¹⁰, for example because they remained in villages while men migrated to urban areas;
3. some activities were unaffordable for the poorest households.

The expected evolution from capacity building and pilot activities to more scaling-up of adaptation actions was not systematic

21 Among the EU Delegations that responded to our survey, 86 % expected support to evolve from capacity building for national, regional or local authorities to concrete adaptation measures directly benefiting the populations most affected by climate change. According to the Commission, national partners appreciated concrete adaptation activities as citizens could clearly see that action was being taken to adapt to climate change.

22 However, throughout both phases of the initiative, capacity building remained a significant feature of support to the countries concerned because of trained staff leaving. Our survey highlighted this issue, as 52 % of respondents felt that turnover of trained staff was high. The Commission’s implementing partners explained that high staff turnover meant there was an ongoing need for capacity building. There was a risk, highlighted by the EU Delegation in the Pacific, that actions may have replaced, rather than built, capacity. The continued focus on capacity building was in some cases preferred to supporting the scaling-up of successful concrete adaptation actions identified during the first phase, as a way to respond to the continuing need for these countries. This meant that there were fewer resources to support the scaling-up of successful concrete adaptation actions identified during the first phase.

23 Only three of the 14 actions in our sample (action 5 in the Pacific and actions 6 and 7 in Bangladesh) involved some scaling-up of pilot adaptation activities, namely by covering new locations and more beneficiaries. Furthermore, only 38 % of respondents to our survey thought that adaptation pilots were systematically scaled up. The expected evolution from capacity-building activities towards more concrete adaptation activities in the second phase of the initiative did not always occur in practice. Box 1 presents two examples from actions in our sample where scaling-up was possible but did not materialise.

There was insufficient focus on women, even though they were disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change

24 Commission planning documents for the actions in our sample explained that women were disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. However, actions did not systematically focus on women. There were only three actions¹¹ in our sample that included activities specifically addressing the needs of women. Among the respondents to our survey, 84 % thought that actions should put more emphasis on helping women. Box 2 contains examples of the lack of focus on women.

Some activities were unaffordable for the poorest households

25 The initiative aimed to integrate climate change into poverty reduction efforts and pay special attention to measures that directly benefit those in extreme poverty¹³. The actions were expected to help reduce poverty by building the resilience of vulnerable households.

26 However, the 2021 impact and sustainability report¹⁴ produced by the Global Support Facility found that some actions did not reach the poorest households. This was due to the higher subsistence risks they face when joining pilot actions or because replicating new technologies is unaffordable. Studies of actions in Cambodia, Nepal, the Pacific and Tanzania found that the cost of adaptation interventions meant that the most vulnerable households were largely excluded. For example, for action 3 in the Pacific, the cost of transporting rainwater storage tanks to remote outer islands in Palau was unaffordable for smaller and poorer households.

The high variability of costs indicates that the efficiency of some actions could be improved

27 The design and budget for actions were appraised by EU Delegations and the Quality Review Group within INTPA. For actions 6 and 7 (LoGIC) in Bangladesh, the EU Delegation assessed the reasonableness of costs in relation to the planned results. It aimed to limit management costs (i.e. salaries, travel and subsistence costs for managers, coordinators, and administrative, finance, communication and IT staff, together with the cost of office premises and equipment and the contribution to organisational overheads) to approximately 20 %. The EU Delegation compared this favourably with a similar intervention with slightly higher management costs. A study on LoGIC from March 2020 found that one of the strong points of the action was the large percentage of funding that directly benefited the local people.

28 However, for nine actions in our sample, the Commission did not sufficiently assess the reasonableness of costs. In three cases there was no analysis of whether the staff and transport costs were necessary or reasonable (see Box 3).

29 Because the Commission did not sufficiently analyse and compare costs, we carried out our own analysis of management costs based on the information available in budgets and reports. Our analysis of the actions sampled showed wide variation in management costs and the potential for identifying efficiency gains at design stage (see Figure 7).

30 Management costs were particularly high in the Pacific. For example, the management costs for actions 1, 2 and 5 represented 43 %, 59 % and 53 % of the total budget respectively. There were two main reasons why management costs were particularly high in the Pacific:

1. having two separate actions running at the same time (e.g. 1 and 5), funded by the different components of the initiative, added to management costs;
2. actions from the second phase (1, 2 and 5) were managed by several implementing partners, which brought in expertise from different regional organisations, but resulted in high management costs.

31 The Commission pointed out that some costs fell into the grey area between management and activities. However, it was not able to specify the proportion spent on each. Box 4 presents two examples illustrating this issue.

Completed actions generally delivered outputs, but the improvements in the beneficiaries’ situation were not measured

32 Results fall into two categories:

1. outputs: produced or accomplished with the resources allocated to an action e.g. number of people trained, number of households applying new farming techniques, publications produced, adaptation activities implemented;
2. outcomes: improvements in the beneficiaries’ situation resulting from the intervention, such as improved climate change policies, improved access to safe water, improved coastal protection, increase in protected land, increase in production and income, and improvements in their health.

33 The 14 actions in our sample typically aimed to build capacity and to carry out concrete adaptation activities (coastal management, water security, healthcare and sustainable farming), mostly pilots. Eight actions¹⁶ focused mainly on adaptation, four actions¹⁷ consisted of both equally, whilst two actions consisted mainly of capacity building¹⁸.

34 There were seven completed actions¹⁹ in our sample, five²⁰ of which generally delivered their expected outputs such as developing national climate-change strategies or helping communities to implement innovative adaptation measures. Action 11 in Ethiopia and action 3 in the Pacific did not deliver activities as planned. Action 11 cancelled the capacity-building activities, while for the remainder it was not possible to link the reported outputs (physical achievements) to specific locations in the 34 woredas (districts). Action 3 was not able to construct the planned national water storage tank in Nauru.

35 The 15‑year duration of the initiative provided an opportunity to measure outcomes (i.e. the improvement in the beneficiaries’ situation). Implementing partners told us that focusing on outcomes would encourage ownership and help to bring about the desired longer‑term changes. It was also necessary to follow up outcomes to identify actions that achieved lasting benefits in order to influence future policy and select the most suitable actions for scaling-up.

36 However, we found that the Commission did not set up the necessary system of indicators, baselines and targets to measure the outcomes of most activities (see Box 5).

37 Implementing partners in the Pacific suggested that outcome indicators could be measured by using a follow-up action or retaining part of the action’s funds. However, we found that the initiative did not follow up outcome indicators from previous actions.

The initiative pursued the sustainability of actions through synergies but paid insufficient attention to exit strategies

38 The impact and sustainability study highlighted the importance of links with other actions to foster sustainability. Among the respondents to our survey, 80 % felt that the initiative’s actions achieved synergies with other climate change actions. Our examination of actions also found many synergies. However, in three cases²¹ there was a lack of coordination and interaction with similar actions. The response of EU Delegations to a number of questions in our survey also indicated that in some cases the sustainability of the results of actions was challenging:

1. 28 % of respondents felt actions did not put sufficient emphasis on sustainability;
2. 34 % thought mainstreaming of climate change into sector policies did not lead to budgets, acts and regulations;
3. 52 % of respondents to our survey thought staff turnover was high (see paragraph 22).

39 The 2021 impact and sustainability report found that actions generally did not pay much attention to creating exit strategies to ensure that activities continued after funding had ended (see Box 6).

40 There were seven closed actions in our sample. Five of them²² received additional EU funding either from the initiative or from other EU programmes in order to be sustainable. However, the other two closed actions²³ lacked the resources to continue activities once funding had ended. The sustainability prospects of action 11 in Ethiopia were particularly poor because of the lack of maintenance of tools and equipment (see Box 7).

The initiative did not demonstrate that it increased countries’ resilience to the effects of climate change

41 ‘Impacts’ are the longer-term socioeconomic consequences that can be observed a certain time after the completion of an initiative. The expected longer-term impact of the Global Climate Change Alliance was the increased resilience of countries to the effects of climate change. However, the robust monitoring and evaluation system necessary to measure the results and impacts of the initiative was not set up as proposed by the global evaluation²⁴ and the concept note in 2015 (see paragraphs 35, 36, 37 and Box 5). There was no assessment framework with common indicators on which all actions could report. Therefore, the Commission could not aggregate results across all actions to monitor the overall performance of the initiative and be held accountable for its achievements. Instead, the impact of support was expressed in terms that were not measurable. For example:

1. The Warsaw Decision on Loss and Damage²⁵, taken at COP 19 in 2013, established the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, referring to the harm caused by climate change. The 2014 publication ‘Loss and Damage in Africa’, produced by action 12 (ClimDev), provided an assessment for consideration when setting up the procedures for implementing this mechanism. However, the extent of its contribution was not measurable.
2. A 2019 article on the Global Climate Change Alliance described how it contributed to the formation of a progressive coalition between the EU and the beneficiary countries, which made the Paris Agreement possible²⁶. However, the contribution of the initiative to the Paris Agreement was not measurable.

42 One attempt to measure impact was action 5 in the Pacific, which included the change in the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND‑GAIN) country index²⁷ for participating countries as an indicator. This index shows the resilience of a country to the impacts of climate change. It uses 45 indicators to measure a country’s vulnerability to climate disruption and its readiness to invest in adaptive actions. We built on the Commission’s attempt to measure impact and analysed the change in ND‑GAIN country indexes over the duration of the initiative from 2007 to the present. We found that there was an improvement in the ND‑GAIN index for most countries that received funding from the initiative (see Figure 8). In most cases, this was less than four points on the ND‑GAIN scale.

43 Support from this initiative is just one of the factors that can influence the ND‑GAIN index of countries’ vulnerability to climate change. The impact of the initiative cannot be isolated from that of national governments, other donors and outside events. Other EU funding can also have an impact, especially as climate-related actions are now more prominent in the Multiannual Indicative Programmes. For example, the European Development Fund and the Development Cooperation Instrument contributed to actions 9, 10, 11 and 12, which were also funded by the GCCA initiative.

44 A further indication that improvements in the ND‑GAIN index cannot be attributed to the initiative is that there is a similar improvement for most of the vulnerable countries that did not receive funding. Similarly, the three countries that saw the largest deterioration in their ND‑GAIN index (Nigeria, Bangladesh and Myanmar/Burma) all received funding from the initiative.

The Commission did not maximise the added value of the initiative

45 This section assesses whether the Commission:

1. focused both phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance on the poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change, in particular LDCs and SIDS;
2. attracted additional funding from EU Member States, the private sector and other innovative financing mechanisms, as intended, to maximise the impact of the initiative;
3. promoted general awareness of the initiative;
4. had reliable global oversight of the costs and activities of the initiative and achieved synergies between the global and intra-ACP components;
5. set out an exit strategy to ensure that the lessons learnt from the initiative are taken forward in the new MFF and feed into the design of activities aiming to tackle climate change in developing countries.

The focus on the most vulnerable countries decreased in the second phase

46 The initiative aimed to help the poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change, in particular the LDCs and SIDS, increase their capacities to adapt to the effects of climate change²⁸. In the first phase, the Commission developed its own climate vulnerability index to select the countries that would most benefit from support. This phase provided support to the most vulnerable LDCs and SIDS, funding 24 out of 29 (see Figure 9)²⁹.

47 The Commission’s index was based on three factors: Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, climate-related vulnerability and commitment to climate change policy dialogue. However, it did not take into account other funding provided to help countries tackle climate change. As a result, the Commission did not know whether it was supporting countries that had already received significant funding, through the MIPs (see paragraph 04) or from other donors, to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.

48 In the second phase, the Commission’s headquarters stopped updating its vulnerability index and no longer used it to select countries for funding. Instead, the Commission referred to the ND‑GAIN index to assess countries’ vulnerability to climate change, but did not use it as a selection tool.

49 The Commission allocated funds in the second phase in response to requests from EU Delegations, endorsed by host country governments. However, this demand-driven approach did not successfully target vulnerable countries that had not benefited from funding in the first phase. In particular:

1. Some less vulnerable countries received additional funding in the second phase even if they had already received funding in the first phase (see Figure 10). These countries were mainly SIDS, e.g. Mauritius (the funding recipient with the highest ND‑GAIN index and considerably less vulnerable than the other recipients), the Maldives, the Seychelles and Timor-Leste, but also included Bhutan, a less vulnerable country that is phasing out from the group of LDCs in 2023.
2. Some countries that were neither LDCs nor SIDS also received funding in the second phase. These were Côte d’Ivoire, Namibia, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. Moreover, two large multi-country programmes also provided funding in the second phase for some countries that were neither LDCs nor SIDS (e.g. Brazil, an upper middle income economy).
3. Several LDCs that were highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but had not received support in the first phase still did not receive country funding in the second phase. These included Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Guinea and Yemen (see Figure 10). Despite the unstable political situation in some of these countries, they nevertheless benefited from other bilateral EU support through the MIPs (see paragraph 04).
4. The Commission’s own index and the ND‑GAIN index both ranked the SIDS as generally less vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than LDCs. This may seem counterintuitive, given the existential threat posed by rising sea levels. However, sea level rise accounted for 10 % of a country’s final score on the Commission’s own index, and 4 % on the ND‑GAIN index. There were many other factors that the indexes took into account to assess countries’ vulnerability to climate change, such as floods, droughts, storms and reliance on agriculture, to which LDCs were particularly exposed. In both the first and second phase, one third of the countries funded were SIDS, even though the indexes ranked them as considerably less vulnerable than LDCs. Moreover, the SIDS of the Pacific received 16 times more funding per person than the LDCs of Africa. The Commission considered that the relatively strong emphasis on the SIDS and their high funding per capita was appropriate because of their small size and isolation.

The initiative did not attract additional funding as expected

50 The Commission, the European Parliament and the Council all recognised that the success of the initiative depended on the mobilisation of significant resources (see Box 8).

51 Despite several attempts to encourage greater participation, the Commission did not succeed in widening the base of EU support for this initiative. In the end, it mobilised €728.8 million over the whole 14‑year period from 2007 to 2020, even though the second phase was an EU flagship initiative. Total financing thus remained well below the Commission’s expectations. While in the first phase, some EU Member States (Estonia, Ireland, Cyprus and Sweden) made limited additional contributions of €28.8 million³¹ to the initiative, no bilateral contributions were made during the second phase.

52 In addition to increasing EU Member States’ contributions, the initiative aimed to promote innovative funding modalities and attract a much wider range of stakeholders, non-state actors and the private sector in partner countries. The Parliament also called for the establishment of green taxes, public-private partnerships and other innovative financing mechanisms. The Commission envisaged the creation of trust or basket funds³² in order to pool funding from different sources (government, donors, private sector, etc.). However, this did not materialise. The evaluation of the initiative from 2015 found that private sector involvement remained relatively weak.

53 Overall, the level of funding available to the initiative prevented the Commission from realising its initial ambition to create a world alliance and limited what it could achieve in tackling climate change in developing countries. A 2019 article on the Global Climate Change Alliance described how “after the launch of the GCCA in September 2007 it became clear rather quickly that the extra resources that could be mobilised by the European Commission would not be enough to have a big effect on the positions of the 70-odd LDC/SIDS in the climate negotiations”³³.

The initiative reached many countries but awareness and visibility remained limited

54 EU Delegations were globally aware of the initiative and received regular information material and newsletters from the Global Support Facility. However, our survey found that many EU Delegations (46 %) felt that the initiative was not very well known in developing countries. Furthermore, 77 % of respondents considered that the lack of awareness of available funding was one of the reasons preventing some vulnerable countries from requesting financial support.

55 EU Member States’ permanent representations showed little awareness of the initiative. A contributing factor was that the Commission did not produce annual reports to the Council summarising the main achievements of the initiative as initially planned in the Implementation Framework³⁴.

56 Other reasons why awareness of the initiative remained low, despite funding actions in more than 80 countries, were that:

1. communication activities in some countries (actions 11 in Ethiopia and 13 in Niger) provided visibility for the EU, but not for the initiative;
2. there were many different information sources, including several websites³⁵, which meant that the information on the initiative was dispersed through multiple communication channels;
3. the parallel implementation through the “global” (DCI-funded) and the “Intra-ACP” (EDF-funded) component blurred the image and the visibility of the initiative and was a source of potential confusion, particularly for external stakeholders.

The complex set-up of the initiative and the lack of a clear definition of its perimeter limited its added value

57 The initiative was not related to a particular aid modality, nor did it support a specific sector/measure that was not already supported by other funds (EU and non EU).

58 In its Communication from 2007 and the related Staff Working Document from 2008, the Commission set out its vision of the initiative. It considered it complementary to the many already existing climate change funds and initiatives, in particular the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund and the Global Environmental Facility. The Commission’s intention was to provide the majority of the initiative’s funding directly to governments through general or sector budget support and not to rely on a project-based approach working through UN implementing agencies, as was the case for the other funds.

59 However, the initiative was mostly project-based, as in the case of the existing funds, and a lot of aid was also channelled through UN organisations or EU Member States’ development agencies (see Figure 5 and paragraph 12). Consequently, there was no clear distinction between this initiative and the numerous thematic funds already tackling climate change in developing countries.

60 The Commission did not have a reliable overview of the costs and activities of the initiative, which would have facilitated the strategic planning of resources. The actions funded were indistinguishable from other EU actions tackling climate change in developing countries. In some cases, funds were used to top up actions already funded by other EU programmes. This raises questions about the added value of having a separate initiative with its own management structure to fund the same actions. Given the fact that all the actions were supported by the same funds (the DCI and the EDF), it was not clear why the decision was made to add the Global Climate Change Alliance label in some cases and not in others.

61 Beside the lack of a clear definition of the initiative’s perimeter, splitting the initiative into two components and two support facilities was unnecessarily complex (see paragraphs 06 and 07 and Table 2). Not only was there a lack of synergies, but having separate actions (for example, action 3 and 4 in the Pacific) made little sense in terms of efficiency. Merging the actions would have led to economies of scale (the same applies to actions 1 and 5 in the Pacific), which would have helped reduce the high management costs (see paragraph 30). The complexity of the set-up was an obstacle to the initiative being a cohesive whole.

62 The regional meetings organised by the two support facilities helped share lessons and experiences between actions. The support facilities contributed to the design of actions and developed their own web-based knowledge-sharing tools. However, we did not find any reasoned justification for the duplication of structures (with their respective websites, etc.), which created risks of overlaps and of potential inefficiencies. For example, a regional workshop held in May 2021 only involved the Global Support Facility. This was a missed opportunity, as the workshop could have benefited from the experience of the Intra-ACP Support Facility with regional organisations.

The initiative was proactive in identifying lessons learnt, but the Commission did not set out a clear exit strategy

63 Many lessons were learnt from the actions funded by the initiative, such as the need to:

1. assess demand from policymakers for the climate information delivered by the actions;
2. ensure the sustainability of community tools for planning climate change actions by integrating them into the curricula of schools and universities;
3. include activities specifically designed for women, young people and senior citizens;
4. strengthen collaboration between relevant ministries and the ministry responsible for finance; and
5. pay more attention to taking forward the achievements of successful actions.

64 Among the respondents to our survey, 76 % felt the initiative identified useful lessons that could improve support in the countries’ Multiannual Indicative Programmes for 2021‑2027. In 2021, the Commission mobilised the Global Support Facility to share lessons with EU Delegations through regional workshops and to integrate lessons learnt into the content of the 2021‑2027 MIPs. The Commission will also draw lessons from the impact and sustainability study as well as from a study on the initiative’s experience in the field of monitoring and evaluating adaptation. Action-specific lessons are shared on the initiative’s websites, the collaborative platforms and the Cap4Dev community platform. The Global Support Facility shares knowledge and lessons learnt on its website, which has increased its user numbers from 8 000 to 30 000 within three years (see Figure 11).

65 We found that the Commission had not set out a clear exit strategy for the initiative. The 2021 Regulation on the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI – Global Europe) for the 2021‑2027 period sets out how thematic budget lines will fund global initiatives. It also states that specific country-based or regional actions will be funded through bilateral cooperation envelopes. In this context, the Commission decided to discontinue the initiative.

66 Currently, the information available on the initiative is spread across different documents. The Commission did not set out a clear exit strategy bringing together the future steps for the initiative. There is also uncertainty over what will be done with the different websites as well as with all the technical papers, background documents, and training and workshop materials prepared by the Global and Intra-ACP Support facilities.

67 The Commission has not explained how it intends to make knowledge products available after the initiative has ended and how it plans to pass on lessons learnt to the EU Global Support Facility for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which began operations in October 2021. Nor is it clear how this new facility will support ongoing activities, which are planned to continue until 2025.

Conclusions and recommendations

68 We conclude that, overall, the initiative did not demonstrate its impact on countries’ resilience to climate change. In terms of efficiency, completed actions generally delivered their outputs, but sometimes at a high cost.

69 The initiative did not measure the improvements in the beneficiaries’ situation, nor did it focus sufficiently on the needs of those most affected. The cost of using new technologies made it more difficult for the poorest households to benefit from the programme. In addition, few actions included activities specifically addressing the needs of women.

70 The initiative focused on building institutional capacity, but sustainability was limited due to high staff turnover. Therefore, the expected evolution from capacity building and pilot activities to more scaling-up of adaptation actions reaching more beneficiaries did not take place systematically (paragraphs 20‑26 and 32‑44).

Recommendation 1 – Focus on those most affected by climate change

When funding climate change actions in developing countries, the Commission should:

1. select indicators, baselines and targets to measure the outcomes of activities;
2. set ambitious targets, taking account of the context in each country, for the proportion of women directly benefiting from actions and increase the focus on the poorest households;
3. in the case of successive actions, improve the balance between capacity building and other activities with a view to scale up concrete adaptation actions reaching more people directly affected by the impacts of climate change.

Target implementation date: Actions funded from January 2024

71 Neither of the two phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance attracted the expected additional funding from Member States and the private sector. Despite this significant financing gap, the Commission did not revise its initial ambitious objectives over the 15-year duration of the initiative. Furthermore, in the second phase, the Commission’s funding allocation criteria led to proportionally less support being allocated to the most vulnerable countries.

72 The Commission did not sufficiently analyse the reasonableness of the budgeted costs of most of the sampled actions. Our analysis showed that the management costs of actions varied widely and were particularly high in the Pacific. We found that the Commission could have made savings with a more detailed analysis of the costs.

73 Although the initiative started in 2007 and supported more than 80 countries, awareness remained limited in both developing countries and EU Member States. This was partly because the actions funded were not distinguishable from other EU actions addressing climate change in developing countries. Moreover, the efficiency of the initiative was impacted by the complexity of its organisation, in particular the duplication of support facilities and funding streams.

74 There will be no additional phases of the Global Climate Change Alliance, but it has provided useful lessons for any other global development initiatives that the EU might implement in the future (paragraphs 27‑31 and 45‑67).

Recommendation 2 – Incorporate lessons learnt into future global development initiatives

When setting up future global development initiatives, the Commission should incorporate the lessons learnt from the Global Climate Change Alliance, particularly the following:

1. revise the objectives when it is apparent during implementation that sufficient funding is not available;
2. allocate funding strategically by applying objective criteria that also take account of financial support for the same sector received by partner countries from other sources;
3. systematically analyse and document the reasonableness of the budgeted costs of actions;
4. promote general awareness of the initiative through communication activities targeting beneficiary countries and potential donors.

Target implementation date: April 2024

This Report was adopted by Chamber III, headed by Mrs Bettina Jakobsen, Member of the Court of Auditors, in Luxembourg at its meeting of 10 January 2023.

Annex

Overview of sampled actions

Abbreviations

ACP: African, Caribbean and Pacific

DCI: Development Cooperation Instrument

DG INTPA: Directorate-General for International Partnerships

EDF: European Development Fund

GCCA(+): Global Climate Change Alliance (Plus)

IPCC: United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

LDCs: Least Developed Countries

LOGIC: Local Government Initiative on Climate change

MFF: Multiannual Financial Framework

MIPs: Multi-annual indicative programmes

NDC: Nationally Determined Contributions

ND-GAIN: Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative

NDICI: Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument

OACPS: Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States

SIDS: Small Island Developing States

Glossary

Budget support: The direct transfer of EU aid to the national treasury of a partner country, subject to certain conditions.

Climate change adaptation: Reducing the vulnerability of countries and communities to climate change by increasing their ability to absorb its impacts.

Climate change mitigation: Reducing or limiting the emission of greenhouse gases due to their effect on the climate.

Programme estimate: A document, drawn up by a partner country and endorsed by the European Commission, setting out the cooperation or development work to be implemented, and the financial, human and material resources required.

Replies of the Commission

https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=63424

Timeline

https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=63424

Audit team

The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes, or of management-related topics from specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.

This performance audit was carried out by Audit Chamber III External action, security and justice, headed by ECA Member Bettina Jakobsen. The audit was led by ECA Member Hannu Takkula, supported by Turo Hentila, Head of Private Office, and Nita Tennilä, Private Office Attaché; Alejandro Ballester Gallardo, Principal Manager; Loulla Puisais – Jauvin, Head of Task; Mark Marshall and Flavia Di Marco, Auditors. Zoe Dennis provided linguistic support. Alexandra Mazilu provided graphic support. Britta Gauckler and Roussalia Nikolova provided survey support. Katja Dudzińska and Gitana Letukytė provided administrative support.

Endnotes

¹ Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, Working Group III Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

² European Parliament, report on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations in developing countries, 7.4.2021.

³ Global Trends 2040, March 2021, National Intelligence Council.

⁴ Communication from the Commission on Building a Global Climate Change Alliance between the European Union and poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change, COM(2007) 540.

⁵ United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Economic Analysis.

⁶ Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.

⁷ For example, the African Union, the Caribbean Forum and the Secretariat of the Pacific Environment Programme.

⁸ NDC Partnership.

⁹ The Global Climate Change Alliance Plus concept note sets out the priorities of the second phase of the initiative for 2015‑2020. (See:The plus of GCCA+. The Global Climate Change Alliance Plus. An EU flagship initiative supporting climate resilience, 18.12.2015).

¹⁰ UN WomenWatch: Women, Gender Equality and Climate Change.

¹¹ Actions 6, 7, 13.

¹² National Commission for Women and Children, Royal Government of Bhutan, 2020: “Gender and Climate Change in Bhutan”.

¹³ Commission Communication COM(2007) 540.

¹⁴ Global Climate Change Alliance Plus Impact and Sustainability Report, 2021.

¹⁵ Article 181.6 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the Union, July 2018.

¹⁶ Actions 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14.

¹⁷ Actions 3, 4, 5, 12.

¹⁸ Actions 2 and 10.

¹⁹ Actions 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13.

²⁰ Actions 4, 8, 9, 12, 13.

²¹ Actions 3, 8 and 12.

²² Actions 3, 4, 8, 9 and 12.

²³ Actions 11 and 13.

²⁴ Evaluation of the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) Global programme World-Wide: Final Report, 2015.

²⁵ UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) loss and damage.

²⁶ Walter Kennes, 2019: The origins of the GCCA: remembering how the alliance was born.

²⁷ University of Notre Dame-Global Adaptation Index.

²⁸ Commission Communication COM(2007) 540.

²⁹ Walter Kennes, 2019.

³⁰ Anders Wijkman, EP Rapporteur: “Global Climate Change Alliance between the European Union and poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change”, 23.9.2008.

³¹ Estonia (€0.8 million), Ireland (€23 million), Cyprus (€0.6 million) and Sweden (€4.4 million).

³² Commission Staff Working Document on the Implementation Framework of the Global Climate Change Alliance, SEC(2008) 2319.

³³ Walter Kennes, 2019.

³⁴ Commission Staff Working Document SEC(2008) 2319.

³⁵ www.gcca.eu, www.intraacpgccaplus.org, www.europa.eu/capacity4dev/gcca-community.

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