The Development, Climate, and Finance Issues Brief series prepared by the World Bank Group proposes to generate and provide just-in-time knowledge and analysis on key issues of interest for climate finance practitioners. The series draws on the Group’s capacity and experience with development finance to analyze climate finance issues through the perspective of development imperatives.

In particular they aim to strengthen the knowledge base and capacity around key issues of the climate finance landscape, by:

• facilitating access and dissemination of well-synthesized information to enhance understanding of key climate finance issues;
• providing timely new analysis, advice and operational recommendations on climate finance issues, in a brief and concise manner;
• raising awareness on climate finance opportunities and innovation in this field;
• increasing diffusion of insights and experience of WBG in piloting, mobilizing and leveraging climate finance.

Issues Brief #4: Climate Finance in the Urban Context: Costs of Adaptation and Mitigation in Cities looks at potential financing opportunities and costs of mitigation and adaptation in the urban context. Wide-ranging potential sources for finance for climate action are described, and suggestions are made for more effective responses to climate investment challenges in cities.

Issues Brief #3: Beyond the Sum of Its Parts: Combining Financial Instruments for Impact and Efficiency considers six projects that use climate finance instruments (the Global Environment Facility, carbon finance, or the Clean Technology Fund) together with development finance to advance low-carbon development. It lays out a conceptual basis for how these resources can be fit together to reduce transaction costs, maximize synergies, and make a wider range of mitigation projects financially and economically attractive.

Issues Brief #2: Making the Most of Public Finance for Climate Action: The World Bank Group at Work illustrates through a range of examples how public finance can catalyze climate action by piloting innovative ways to leverage both climate and development finance, such as combining resources and instruments to maximize synergies, exploring new opportunities to expand the scope for market mechanisms, and strengthening the capacity to facilitate access to resources and their effective use.

Issues Brief #1: Monitoring Climate Finance and ODA examines the challenges of monitoring financial flows related to climate change. The first part focuses on tracking, monitoring, and reporting various types of flows, primarily from official development assistance (ODA) and other public sources but also from private sources. The second part explores possible ways of tracking additionality in ODA flows, with the aim of stimulating global discussion on this issue.

Click here for the related series, Development and Climate Change series, which provides in-depth analyses on key issues of development and climate change.