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Global EbA Fund (GEBAF): Support for the Implementation and Upscaling of Ecosystem-based Adaptation

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development identifies climate change as a major risk to achieving development goals, threatening the survival of societies and the planet's ecosystems. Climate-driven hazards like droughts, floods, fires, and cyclones are increasingly affecting food and water security, with significant impacts in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Small Islands, and the Arctic. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is gaining global momentum as a strategy to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Recognized as a uniting force, EbA aligns with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The uptake of EbA at global, regional, and national levels faces three inter-related barriers: Lack of awareness of natural assets' role in building resilience, inadequate institutional capacities to mainstream EbA, and limited access to sustainable financing for ecosystem-based approaches. The Global EbA Fund with its objective to support “Participating governments, networks, civil society, and private sector to demonstrate increased mainstreaming of EbA in national, regional and global policies and innovative EbA practices are widely adopted, resourced and implemented by stakeholders at all levels” aims to create an enabling environment through knowledge, policy, planning, governance, partnerships, and availability of funds. The Fund has one core outcome: “increased awareness, uptake and support of EbA approaches for adaptation and resilience by governments, networks, civil society, and private sector”. The seven year project, funded by a €40 million BMU Grant (approx. US$ 44 million), will be implemented by UNEP in partnership with IUCN, and overseen by BMUV/ZUG. Multi-stakeholder and inter-sectoral partnerships will be established to promote EbA uptake at national and regional levels, engage development cooperation partners, donors, agencies, and the private sector. IUCN will execute the Global EbA Fund and administer grants. The Fund contributes to the strategic priorities identified in the UNEP Medium-Term Strategy through the ‘Climate Action’ sub-programme with contribution to the ‘Nature action’ sub-programme. Through the Programme Coordination Project (PCP) on Adaptation and Resilience, it will contribute to enhancing climate resilience through planning, piloting and testing ecosystem-based adaptation as a rapid deployment mechanism aimed to incubate innovative ideas and scale up EbA implementation by overcoming identified barriers and under Direct Outcomes 1.2: Carbon neutrality and resilience are integrated into climate planning and policy/regulatory frameworks at all levels; 1.4 Sectoral partnerships and access to technologies for decarbonization, dematerialization and resilience are enhanced; and 1.5 Private and public financial flows are aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Fund will contribute to the PCP by supporting and catalyzing adaptation investments globally. The project was designed in 2019 at the request of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU), following BMU's programming guidelines and templates for Project Documents. It has been retrofitted to UNEP's Project Document Template.