National Climate Finance Strategy of Belize 2021–2026.

This document is the Climate Finance Strategy for Belize which has been supported and developed under the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP). The CAEP is led by the NDC Partnership along with several other partners providing technical assistance to Belize to update its NDC. It encompasses several interlinked subelements including a Climate Finance Strategy, climate finance options report, studies on mobilising private sector finance and MDB finance, etc. to facilitate the implementation of the updated NDC. The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) of the Commonwealth Secretariat has led the component of developing this strategy, which is aiming at providing a strategic framework within which the financial resources from different sources and channels can be used to address the climate change issues of the country. The Climate Finance Strategy has been developed based on the Climate Finance Landscape Study completed by the CCFAH under the CAEP. The strategy development process has been done focusing on capitalising on the strengths identified and addressing the areas to be improved as identified in the climate finance landscape study. It has also linked to the other key outputs generated along with the NDC updating process of Belize including the Resource Requirement Report, The NDC Implementation Plan, Climate Finance Options Report, Study on using Investments from the Private Sector and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to leverage climate finance, etc. The views from the key stakeholders and development partners engaged in climate finance work in Belize haves also been obtained. The strategy is proposed for a five-year period from 2021 to 2026 overlapping with the NDC updating cycle. It is aiming at the overall goal of adequate climate finance being accessed effectively, contributing towards enhanced climate resilience and climate change mitigation actions of Belize.
There are three specific objectives of the strategy as follows: 1. To provide an integrated and strategic approach to access resources required towards enhancing climate resilience and climate change mitigation of Belize for 2021–2026. 2. To enhance national capacities to mobilize and utilize resources required for priority climate actions of Belize. 3. To maximize synergies with other sectoral development plans and sustainable development co-benefits of climate investments. The proposed Climate Finance Strategy has been guided by five principles. Twelve strategic directions constitute the building blocks of the strategy. The strategic directions are categorized into two groups: • Cross-cutting strategic directions will contribute to creating an enabling environment for access and utilization of adequate finance in a more effective and predictable manner. • Core strategic directions will provide direct strategic guidance towards accessing climate finance from appropriate sources and channels. The strategy has five cross-cutting strategic directions: 1. Enhancing national capacities to mobilize and access climate finance; 2. Rolling out an overarching inclusion framework; 3. Building wider partnerships and alliances to access climate finance. 4. Integrated programming for a project/concept pipeline; 5. Putting in place a comprehensive measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system to track climate finance flows and utilization. The strategy has seven core strategic directions: 1. Priority financing for climate change adaptation and resilience building; 2. Leveraging international climate finance with MDB and private sector investments; 3. Promoting private sector investments in climate actions; 4. Enhancing carbon assets-based financing and participation in market mechanisms; 5. Climate proofing of development investments; 6. Co-ordinated risk financing mechanism; 7. Exploring non-conventional climate financing strategies. The strategic directions have a significant level of interlinkages and synergies. The document has also provided a list of key short and medium-term actions under each strategic direction with an indicative plan of actions. It is recommended that the Government of Belize keep this finance strategy as a live document with a mid-term review to see the progress against the objectives and the key actions while updating the strategy every three years on a rolling basis. It is also recommended to develop a detailed action plan to implement the strategy in collaboration with all the relevant institutions and partners, building on the indicative plan of action.