Washington, D.C., Feb. 20, 2024 — As the world grapples with mobilizing record levels of finance to meet global climate targets, the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), hosted by the World Bank, is launching a Green Accountability knowledge and financing hub to accelerate social innovation to help catalyze more equitable and effective climate action.

The GPSA in partnership with the World Resources Institute (WRI), women-led grassroots network the Huairou Commission, and civil society organization SouthSouthNorth (SSN), signed a $4.5 million partnership agreement to implement this new initiative. The initiative recognizes that powerful and sustainable climate action is enabled by empowering the voices of communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. The initiative will thus direct funding to the local level, implement locally-led solutions, and hold decision-makers accountable to making climate finance and action effective and equitable for local communities. 

“This platform is designed to deepen our engagement with civil society organizations (CSOs), with the goal of enabling more transparent, accountable, and effective deployment of funds for combating climate change,” said Aly Rahim, Program Manager for GPSA at the World Bank. “Our aim is to ensure climate finance reaches communities and delivers tangible, sustainable outcomes that are monitored and verified by those communities at the forefront of climate impacts .”

The Green Accountability platform will use a flexible, accelerated, and targeted sub-granting mechanism to support CSOs in select countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Mexico, and Senegal. Ani Dasgupta, President and Chief Executive Officer at implementing partner WRI, remarked that “Our collaboration with the GPSA enables us to strengthen a network of CSOs dedicated to advancing social accountability and improving the governance of climate action.” Glenn Dolcemascolo, Director of Programs at the Huairou Commission added that “This collaboration with GPSA enables grassroots women’s organizations like ours to build gender equality, support climate-resilient communities and drive more inclusive climate governance.” 

“More than ever, it is increasingly important to link civil society partners to explore systemic ways to have a voice in decision-making processes to proactively respond to the impacts of climate change,” said Dr. Shehnaaz Moosa, Director of SSN. “We are excited to partner with GPSA, WRI and the Huairou Commission to establish a Community of Practice on Green Accountability that brings together CSOs from across the globe.” 

Complementing the new platform, the Green Accountability Technology Accelerator will identify and support the scaling of emerging technologies that can amplify citizen engagement, oversight, and voice. The newly established accelerator is a partnership of the GPSA and the Climate Collective, which aims to enhance the quality and impact of climate finance and action by harnessing the power of digital technologies. These technologies include, but are not limited to, carbon sequestration, bioacoustic sensors tracking species, and Internet of things (IoT) networks powering publicly available databases.  

“The Green Accountability Technology Accelerator will both identify and support emerging technologies that amplify the engagement, oversight, and voice of citizens and civil society. It is an exciting opportunity to scale tech that ensures climate finance is reaching its intended targets,” said Alison Filler, Head of Innovation at Climate Collective, emphasizing on the importance of technology in ensuring that climate finance is transparent and accountable. The Technology Accelerator is open for applications until March 21.  

Call for applications for the Green Accountability initiative in the five pilot countries will be launched this spring, with winners announced this summer. Stay tuned on greenaccountability.org in the following months.