Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) were key to adopting the 2015 Paris Agreement, which outlines national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and identifies financial needs for mitigation and adaptation efforts. Most mitigation and adaptation contributions outlined in the NDCs of developing countries are based upon receiving international support. While support from the international community has addressed some capacity gaps, many conditional NDCs of low-income countries have finance, capacity-building, and technological needs. Recipient countries are hindered by the lack of accurate monitoring of climate finance flows, which prevents them from making more informed decisions about planning, prioritization, allocation of climate change resources, and measuring and evaluating progress.
The Certified Expert in Financing NDCs (CEFNDC) is an online course that addresses this knowledge gap and provides a comprehensive overview of the different facets of NDC contributions and the resulting financing implications. This course is based on Frankfurt School’s extensive experience in international practical project and advisory work as well as education programs in the area of climate change and finance.
What Do We Offer?
Tuition Fees*
| Registration Date | Fee |
| Before Jan. 15, 2024 | EUR 700* |
| After Jan. 15, 2024 | EUR 900* |
Final exam fee: An additional final exam fee will be charged for the second and third final exam attempt
Discounts:
Payment in instalments is unfortunately not possible.
*Subject to change
Target Audience
Experts and professionals from the climate and development finance community (incl. Development Banks, Funds, IGOs, NGOs, Int. cooperation), and policymakers and all other interested individuals.
Workload
The course takes approx. 6 months assuming 3-4 hours of self-study per week. It consists of 6 mandatory units, which build upon each other. The units need to be completed in a sequence.
You are not sure if you manage to complete the course within 6 months? No worries! You can apply for a course extension (6 more months) against an administrative fee.
All our courses contribute to the following SDGs
This course will enhance your knowledge in the following SDGs. The SWA offers professional and executive courses dedicated to the advancement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Register before 15 January 2024 and benefit from our early bird discount.
The objective of this e-learning course is to become familiar with the different facets of NDC contributions and the resulting financing implications. The course aims to empower the participants to learn about different ways to finance commitments mentioned in the submitted NDCs.
Suggestions & Recommendations
This course gives you the flexibility to decide on timing and pace of your learning experience. However, we will provide you with recommendations for you to take as much as possible from this course.
Your Schedule: We will provide you a course schedule including voluntary and mandatory deadlines. The course schedule serves as guideline for your personal learning schedule and will help you to complete the programme within the given time frame.
Exercises: Even though the exercises in the script are not mandatory we strongly advise that you use them as an opportunity to check your knowledge and to prepare yourself for the final exam.
Networking opportunities: Use the forum to introduce yourself to your peer participants and start interesting discussions.
Unit 1: Introduction – Linking science, policy and finance
Unit 1 aims to answer the question “can Paris pledges avert severe climate change”? To do this, it briefly introduces the basic concepts of climate change science, introducing climate change from different perspectives and providing the dynamic interplay of climate politics, business and finance. This leads to how these different perspectives were captured in the NDC submitted in the run-up to the 2015 COP, and how they aim to limit global warming to 2°C through mitigation strategies and climate resilience goals.
Unit 3: Mitigation contributions of NDCs
Mobilising and managing finance for NDCs is a multifaceted challenge and differ for mitigation and adaptation. The objective of this module is to map the different types of contributions laid out in NDCs for mitigation by sector. You will understand how mitigation contributions of NDCs are supporting transformational change to a low carbon economy.
Unit 5: Financing implications of commitments
An enabling environment to attract investment is one that has appropriate policy conditions, set out in the NDCs (Unit 3 & 4). The unit will familiarise you with national and international, public and private support frameworks available across different countries that can be used to finance NDCs discussed in the previous units.
Unit 2: Different perspectives on financing NDCs
This unit delves deeper into NDCs as national climate plans. You will understand the challenge for the countries of mobilising and managing finance for NDCs and get to know the different characteristics of existing NDCs. Unit 2 discusses also the spectrum of design elements of NDCs. This will help to understand the potential financing needed to implement the NDC and barriers hindering investment.
Unit 4: Adaptation contributions of NDCs
The objective of this module is to map the different types of contributions laid out in NDCs for climate adaptation by sector and to understand how finance flows for adaptation. You will learn how countries develop political frameworks to strategically plan and implement (necessary) adaptation measures and how these are linked to existing development plans.
Unit 6: Bringing it all together (Case Studies)
This unit will provide real-life case studies that guide participants to dive into how selective NDCs are financed.
Unit 6 consists of group work, in which a case study will be analysed. Participation in group work is a mandatory part of obtaining the certificate at the end of the course.
*Subject to change
Dr. Christine Grüning
Dr. Christine Grüning delivers a strong interdisciplinary background in environmental economics, finance and policy. Since 2011 she is managing and implementing applied research, education and capacity building projects for the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance.
In her role as senior project manager she combines applied research on policy-relevant topics in climate finance and policy with an orientation towards practical application and final implementation. Her current fields of research are the economics of climate change, barriers on investment in mitigation and adaptation finance, market imperfections, and results-based climate finance. She has been crucial for the success of the annual report “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Finance” in cooperation with Bloomberg New Energy Finance and UN Environment over the last 12 years and the development and implementation of the Certified Expert of Climate Adaptation Finance, Certified Expert of Climate & Renewable Energy Finance and the Adaptation Finance Fellowship Programme (AFFP). Between 1999 and 2004 she studied International Business Administration at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). She holds a Bachelor Degree in Financial Studies from Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) and a Maestria de Dirección de Empresas (MBA) from the Universidad Católica de Códoba (Argentina). Subsequently she joined the Chair of Public Finance and Environmental Economics at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and received a doctoral degree in 2010.
Dr. Pieter Pauw, Researcher, Eindhoven University of Technology
Dr. Joanes Atela, Convenor, Africa Research and Impact Network
Kennedy Mbeva, Co-Convenor, Africa Research and Impact Network
The content of this course was developed by the Frankfurt School - UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance (http://fs-unep-centre.org/). The Centre is a strategic cooperation between Frankfurt School and the UN Environment programme. Its vision is to advance transformation to resilient low-carbon and resource-efficient economies by attracting new types of investors, in particular catalysing the financing of clean energy by the private sector. The Centre is UNEP’s major knowledge hub for climate finance related aspects.
Khayala Sadikhova
Programme Coordinator
