The board of the Green Climate Fund this week adopted reforms that aim to make it quicker and easier for organisations in developing countries to become eligible to apply for funds for climate projects.

Achala Abeysinghe, director of investment services at the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF), told a board meeting in Papua New Guinea that the current accreditation process is “slow, cumbersome and difficult to navigate – which limits GCF impact on the ground”.

She told Climate Home that the reforms – which aim to reduce the average time required to approve regional and national entities to implement GCF projects from 30 months to nine – will make accreditation “more fit-for-purpose, more predictable and more accountable”.

The changes were supported by the GCF’s board members from governments around the world, including developing countries that have long complained about the length of time accreditation takes.

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Paraguay’s board member María Fernanda Souza said it was a “positive step toward greater efficiency, coherence and alignment towards the fund’s strategic priorities”.

The changes involve streamlining procedures and deferring many of the due diligence checks, so that they are conducted when an organisation applies for funds rather than when they apply for accreditation.

“This avoids upfront reviews of functions a partner may never need and tailors scrutiny to what a project actually requires,” a GCF spokesperson told Climate Home.

The reforms will extend fast-track accreditation to organisations that have already been approved by funds similar to the GCF and will provide discounts on accreditation fees to national and regional – rather than international – institutions, particularly those from the world’s least developed countries and small island developing states.

Abeysinghe told the board that clear timelines would be set – both for the GCF representatives carrying out the accreditation process and the institutions applying for it. This will increase accountability for bo