Thank you, Co-Chairs.
I am speaking on behalf of the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities Constituency. I align and support with the interventions made from my colleagues from NGO constituencies and share a few thoughts on the shared questions.
On the first question, local governments are already contributing to the implementation of the climate finance landscape through concrete action on the ground. Across our constituency, cities and regions are developing climate investment plans, strengthening project preparation pipelines, deploying innovative finance mechanisms, and working with national governments, development finance institutions, and private investors to advance mitigation and adaptation investments. Through technical assistance, capacity-building, and investment readiness support, local governments are helping translate climate commitments into projects capable of attracting and deploying finance.
On the second question, our experience shows that climate finance is deployed most effectively where there is a strong enabling environment built on clear policy direction, effective institutions, and coordination across levels of government. Countries that embrace multilevel climate governance and multilevel climate finance approaches are often better able to align national climate objectives with local investment opportunities. Initiatives such as the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) are helping demonstrate the value of structured collaboration between national and subnational governments in climate planning and implementation.
However, important challenges remain. Many local governments continue to face limited technical capacity, fragmented funding channels, insufficient project preparation support, and weak fiscal frameworks that constrain their ability to access and deploy finance, including issues with guarantees, creditworthiness and access to capital markets. Too often, financing mechanisms remain disconnected from the institutions responsible for implementation on the ground.
This brings us to the third question. Effective climate finance requires policy and regulatory frameworks that provide long-term certainty for investment while strengthening municipal fiscal frameworks and local public finance systems. It also requires institutional arrangements that support coordination across ministries, levels of government, development finance institutions, including national and subnational development banks, and other stakeholders.
Country platforms can play an important role in this regard by bringing together public and
private actors around nationally determined priorities while ensuring that local governments are meaningfully involved in identifying investment opportunities and implementation pathways. More broadly, climate finance systems will be most effective when they enable multilevel climate finance approaches that connect national strategies with local delivery.
The experience of local governments demonstrates that climate finance is most effective when institutions, policies, and financial systems are aligned around implementation. We encourage this Work Programme to continue examining these enabling conditions.
Thank you.
