Taking climate tech towards implementation
Developing concept notes through the Technology Needs Assessment project is a powerful tool to ensure financing green technology
The Technology Neds Assessment project adds capacity building for concept notes, to increase implementation of climate technology for climate mitigation and adaptation. The focus on concept notes is a new addition from UNEP DTU Partnership to both the ongoing round three of the TNA project and the recently launched fourth round.
Having developed Technology Action Plans (TAP) as part of the TNA process, countries will now be assisted in the elaboration of project concept notes, as a last step of their TNA process. The concept note is the first phase in the project proposal development, where countries describe the initial project idea, carry out pre-feasibility and ensure alignment with national priorities. Elaborating project concept notes is a key step in taking the TAPs towards implementation, by helping raising funding for actual implementation of climate technologies.
A powerful tool
It is common practice that funding agencies require a concept note before the submission of a full project proposal, encompassing details about the project itself combined with indicative financing and cost-related information.
As such, with a strong concept note in hand, TNA countries have a powerful tool to present to development agencies, regional development banks and other financial institutions. The concept notes can also be useful in presenting to a variety of support providers such as accredited entities, implementing agencies and delivery partners of the UNFCCC financial mechanism.
In the concept note writing process, countries carrying TNAs will identify and choose the entities where they aim to apply, for example, the GEF, the GCF, the European Commission, the Adaptation Fund, but also bilateral donors, multilateral banks and regional or national development banks. This identification allows the notes to be tailored for specific entities, increasing the chance of funding.
Local capacity building
In the development of concept notes, UNEP DTU Partnership, together with partner countries, will select local consultants, and then arrange training sessions on concept notes preparation for local stakeholders. subsequent reviews will be provided to countries, to ensure that the concept note has the highest potential to be selected by funding agencies for further elaboration into a proposal development.
For example, UNEP DTU Partnership will ensure that the concept notes are aligned with national priorities and endorsed by the relevant national institutions, to reduce the perceived risk of the investment and attract public and privates sources of finance, bringing the TAPs further towards implementation.
Find more information about the development of project concept notes in our recently published guidebook Finance Guide for Implementation of Technology Action Plans – Technology Needs Assessment (unepdtu.org)
Online capacity building
From Monday the 14th of June, online capacity-building workshop on concept notes development will be organized with TNA countries.