Jamaica, International Financial Institutions, Donors Collaborate on Establishing a Programmatic Approach to Finance Climate Needs
Jamaica, International Financial Institutions, Donors Collaborate on Establishing a Programmatic Approach to Finance Climate Needs
The Government of Jamaica (GOJ) along with several international partners are discussing a framework to establish a ‘Blue Green Facility’ –a blended financing structure–of up to USD 500 million over five years, which would include a contribution from the Government of Jamaica.
Among the international partners are the Development Bank of Jamaica, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank Group, the European Investment Bank as part of Team Europe, USAID, and the United Kingdom.
Such a programmatic approach will help catalyze climate finance by introducing systematic, coherent, and scalable approaches towards adaptation and mitigation needs. This support comes in the form of the US$764 million Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Executive Board in March 2023.
Following the conclusion of Jamaica’s second review of the RSF, the IMF has disbursed an additional (Special Drawing Rights) SDR191.45 million (about US$254 million).
The authorities continue to make swift progress in their ambitious climate policy agenda under the RSF to increase resilience to climate change and catalyze climate financing.
Recent reforms include steps to establish a national natural disaster reserve fund, strengthen climate-related elements in public investment management, and enhance the climate risks assessment in the financial system to embed these risks into supervisory activities.
These reforms have built on steps taken in early 2023 to strengthen the natural disaster risk financing policy, the policy framework for Public-Private Partnerships, the electric vehicle policy, and the guidelines for energy efficiency in public buildings.
