Trinidad and Tobago’s Nationally Designated Authority

Overview of the Role of the NDA

A Nationally Designated Authority (NDA) is the fundamental intermediary and point of communication between a country and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Further, the NDA is the authority that the GCF recognizes for all legal matters pertaining to the Fund and as the official signatory on behalf of the government. As per the Fund’s requirements, the NDA is responsible for seeking to “ensure that activities supported by the Fund align with strategic national objectives and priorities and help advance ambitious action on adaptation and mitigation in line with national needs”.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the NDA is the Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD). Within the NDA, the Environmental Policy and Planning Division – Multilateral Environmental Agreements Unit (EPPD-MEAU) is responsible for climate change policy and will be responsible for GCF related activities.  Currently, two persons are tasked with the responsibility of GCF-related activities, i.e. 1 primary officers, and a supervisor.

Responsibilities of the NDA

The five main functions and responsibilities of the NDA as required by the Fund are:

• Provide broad strategic oversight of the related-Fund’s activities within the country – ensuring alignment with national sustainable development objectives and frameworks including climate change strategies and policies, such as the National Climate Change Policy, NDC, and the NAP;
• Convene relevant public, private and civil society stakeholder consultations to identify priority sectors and needs to be translated into project proposals to the Fund;
• Communicate nominations of entities (subnational, national or regional, public and private) seeking accreditation to the Fund under the ‘direct access’ track;
• Implement the no-objection procedure on funding proposals, submitted to the Fund, to ensure consistency of funding proposals with national climate change plans and priorities has been checked and validated through nationally appropriate processes; and
• Provide leadership on the deployment of different types of readiness and preparatory support funding in the country.
• Structure and Task Allocation of Trinidad and Tobago’s NDA

The current intention of the NDA is to distribute GCF related tasks among the existing team members, but the NDA is not opposed to considering additional staff. The NDA has decided to dedicate the main management of GCF day to day functionality within the NDA to two team members overall: one primary officer, and one supervisor. This will allow for coordination, oversight and focus on GCF specific tasks.