More than 100 civil society groups have signed a letter asking the Green Climate Fund to hold “robust public consultations” about its transparency policy.

The Fund is planning to replace the current Interim Information Disclosure Practice with a new Information Disclosure Policy.

The group letter expressed “serious concerns that there may only be limited opportunities for public comment and consultation with external stakeholders before the draft policy is put to the Board.”

The policy is scheduled for Board consideration in October, but “there is no plan to publicly release a draft of the policy for comment and subsequent revision,” the letter said. The groups said that “the current practice of posting draft policies one to three weeks prior to Board meetings, with no formal public consultation, is not sufficient.”

The groups called on the Board’s Ethics and Audit Committee, which will meet at an upcoming July 6-9 meeting in Korea, to initiate a formal public consultation process for the policy.

The consultation process should include at least the following steps:

1. A public announcement that the policy review will be taking place, with an opportunity for interested stakeholders to provide advance comments to feed into the initial preparation work by the Secretariat.
2. The publication of a draft policy (or revised policy, as the case may be) with a period of at least 30 days for interested stakeholders to make submissions.
3. The public posting of all submissions that have been received.
4. Publication of the revised draft policy well in advance of Board consideration, so that interested stakeholders have the opportunity to provide comments to the ?Board.
5. Publication, at the same time as the above, of a note indicating how the main ?initial comments by external stakeholders have or have not been taken into account in the revised policy.

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Filed under: IFTI Watch