The UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), a constituted body under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, will hold three webinars for country representatives, practitioners and experts for an informal exchange on the development of the Fourth Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows.

The informal webinar provides an opportunity for stakeholders from public and private finance institutions, civil society and governments to provide inputs as to the latest information on climate finance data availability and methodologies related to climate finance as well as assessment of the impact and delivery from recipient perspectives. In particular, the webinar follows up on progress related to key recommendations from the 2018 BA, including on:

• Enhancing reporting of climate finance (recommendation (a): Request developed country Parties and encourage developing country Parties, building on progress made so far and ongoing work, to continue enhancing the transparency, consistency and comparability of data on climate finance provided and mobilized through public interventions, and taking into consideration developments in relevant organizations and institutions; recommendation (b) Encourage Parties providing climate finance to enhance their reporting of climate finance provided to developing country Parties;
• Filling data gaps (recommendation (e): Encourage Parties, building on progress made so far, to enhance their tracking and reporting on climate finance flows from all sources; recommendation (f): Encourage developing country Parties that provide support to report information on climate finance provided to other developing country Parties; recommendation (g): Encourage developed countries and climate finance providers, as well as multilateral and financial institutions, private finance data providers and other relevant institutions, to enhance the availability of granular, country-level data on mitigation and adaptation finance, inter alia, transport, agriculture, forests, water and waste;
• Efforts to harmonize approaches (recommendation (c) Invite Parties, through their board memberships in international financial institutions, to encourage continued efforts in the harmonization of methodologies for tracking and reporting climate finance among international organizations.

The SCF assists the COP in exercising its functions in relation to the Financial Mechanism of the Convention.

For the fourth time, the SCF will prepare the Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows. The first BA was prepared in 2014. The second BA was prepared in 2016 and the third BA was prepared in 2018. The summary and recommendation by the SCF on the 2018 BA is contained in annex to decision 4/CP.24. The underlying technical reports are viewable here. The Fourth BA will focus on climate finance flows for 2017 and 2018 as well as any identified trends from previous years.

The SCF, through the BA and other activities, contributes to the progressive improvement of the compilation of climate finance information. Additionally, the COP, in decision 1/CP21, paragraph 94 (e), has also requested the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, when developing the modalities, procedures, and guidelines for the transparency framework for action and support, to consider, inter alia, information in the BA. Furthermore, Parties, in the context of discussions on the development of the modalities and identification of sources of inputs for the global stocktake under the APA, have referred to the BA as vehicle to inform global stocktakes with respect to support to developing countries, as well as the broader climate financial and investment flows.