For the coastal West African nation of Senegal, climate action and economic development are intertwined and interdependent. Both require significant investment.
According to World Bank estimates, Senegal requires USD 1.36 billion annually through 2030 to fund its climate policies and measures, while climate inaction could reduce the country’s GDP by 9.4% by 2050.
For Senegal, which remains a Least Developed Country (LDC), knowing where climate finance goes and how it can be mobilized, what results it supports and where funding is still needed is essential to making informed decisions and mobilizing financial support and investment.
In this context, with support from the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT), Senegal is establishing a national framework for climate finance transparency. Through the ICAT project, Senegal strengthened the institutional arrangements, methodologies and technical capacity needed to assess financing needs and gaps, track climate finance flows and connect financial information with national planning and budgeting.
Building institutional foundations
Before partnering with ICAT, Senegal had begun building its climate finance data infrastructure, including a digital platform to host and track climate-related projects, developed with support from the Green Climate Fund.
However, the platform went unused. This was due to a lack of institutional arrangements and harmonized methodologies for data collection and management, fragmented climate information across national and subnational institutions, and limited coordination among finance, planning, and environment actors.
Through the ICAT project, Senegal established an institutional framework for climate finance transparency, clarifying roles and responsibilities across ministries and agencies, and creating a coordination mechanism. A newly created National Technical Committee on Climate Finance led the new governance framework, and a draft interministerial decree was prepared to formalize institutional responsibilities.
Another major challenge stemmed from the lack of a standardized definition of climate finance. The project developed such a definition, giving institutions a shared basis for identifying and classifying climate-related financial flows and improving consistency in data collection.
These institutional foundations clarified how relevant actors, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Environment and sectoral and local authorities, could contribute to the national framework. This established a basis for more coordinated management of financial information to support climate action and sustainable development.
Mainstreaming climate change into national budgeting
A key achievement of Senegal’s ICAT-supported work was a study on integrating climate change into national budget planning and tracking. These efforts focused on embedding climate finance in core public finance processes and strengthening links between climate finance tracking, public spending and national priorities.
The study assessed approaches to incorporating climate change into budget planning and proposed ways to improve the tracking of climate-related public expenditure. It also examined how to better align financial flows with national climate priorities and Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets.
Importantly, this work supported mainstreaming climate change into national budgeting processes, an essential step for optimizing public resource management for climate action. The study recommended revising the national budget classification system to incorporate climate-related codes, which would make it easier to identify and track climate-related expenditure within the public financial management systems.
Through these improvements, climate finance transparency can inform public spending decisions to implement climate commitments and low-carbon development priorities.
Operationalizing data collection and analysis
The ICAT project developed a procedures manual outlining how climate finance data should be collected, validated and reported. Endorsed through a multi-stakeholder process, this manual provides a common reference for institutions and helps harmonize data practices at both national and subnational levels. The project also developed methodologies to identify and account for domestic and international climate finance flows, creating a common framework for measurement and reporting.
To build a consolidated picture of climate investment, Senegal mapped existing and planned climate-related projects across sectors, classified them according to national priorities and NDC objectives and generated a preliminary dataset to populate the national digital platform. This exercise was crucial for transforming the platform from an empty repository into a meaningful database of climate actions.
The project operationalized the platform by establishing the procedures, governance arrangements and data needed to support its use. The system now supports Senegal’s Biennial Transparency Reports and the tracking and updating of its NDCs, including identifying financing needs and gaps.
To ensure stakeholders could apply the new framework, the project delivered training and workshops to government ministries, regional committees, private sector actors, and civil society organizations. These activities strengthened technical knowledge of climate finance tracking, budgeting and use of the system, built a shared understanding of the framework and supported national ownership.
Supporting investment for low-carbon development
Beyond strengthening climate finance tracking, the project also helped make the connection with resource mobilization. It supported the development of project ideas and concept notes aligned with NDC priorities, including strengthening the climate resilience of populations, production systems, agroforestry and renewable energy, helping translate strategic objectives into fundable initiatives.
Efforts to fully operationalize the new framework are ongoing, building on the foundation the project laid. Enhanced transparency and capacity for better resource management can improve Senegal’s ability to access international climate finance and implement its NDC.
The combination of institutional arrangements, procedural guidance and capacity development is helping Senegal move from readiness to implementation and take an important step towards sustainable and resilient development.
