The GCF Sectoral Guides provide practical, sector-specific details on what types of projects are eligible for GCF funding. A key function of these guides is to clarify what constitutes a paradigm shift in each sector, helping developers move beyond incremental improvements to design truly transformational interventions. These sectoral guides offer targeted information and specific guidance on how to develop high-impact proposals in key areas like water, agriculture, energy, and ecosystems. They are essential resources for understanding what the GCF considers a “paradigm shift” within a particular sector and for aligning your project's design with the Fund’s strategic objectives.
Followings are the examples of GCF’s priority sectors based on the information from the Simplified Approval Process (SAP) Technical Guidelines for each sector found in GCF website.
- Higher temperatures affect the availability and distribution of rainfall, snowmelt, river flows and groundwater, and accelerate deterioration of water quality.
- Shifting precipitation patterns alter rainfall, snowmelt, river flows, and groundwater levels, leading to both floods and droughts.
- Climate-induced glacier retreat, sea level rise, and extreme weather events further strain water security.
As the water sector is interlinked with other sectors, the scope includes the following four sub-sectors:
- Integrated water resources management (IWRM)
- Climate resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene (CR-WASH)
- Integrated drought management (IDM)
- Integrated flood management (IFM)
- Enhance access to WASH infrastructure and services that are resilient to climate change risks, coupled with building up capacity of the local water sector to scale up such access;
- Ensure climate resilient water security, by enabling countries to be better able to withstand drought and flood events under climate variability and changing conditions;
- Create a culture of climate and disaster resilience – moving towards proactive rather than reactive water management.
- Increase of temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns may increase the frequency and intensity of natural weather-related events.
- Sea level rise may cause the coastal areas to become flooded, which can also negatively affect mangroves and wetlands.
- Exposure to natural hazards have negative effects on ecosystems and ecosystem services.
For GCF projects, there are following nine categories identified within ecosystem and ecosystem services sector:
- Marine (Sea deeper than 50 metres)
- Coastal (Areas between 50 metres below mean sea level and 50 metres above the high tide level or extending landward to a distance 100 kilometres from shore)
- Inland water (Rivers, lakes, floodplains, reservoirs and wetlands)
- Forest (*There is a separate SAP guideline for forest and land use)
- Dryland (Lands where annual precipitation is less than two thirds of potential evaporation)
- Island
- Mountain
- Polar
- Cultivated (*There is a separate SAP guideline for forest and land use)
- One of the barriers for paradigm shift pathways in the ecosystem and ecosystem services sector is the lack of sustainability of the investments, which often loses mainstream sectors of economic development. Therefore, a paradigm shift for the sector would be indicated by the support for and development of a natural capital accounting (NCA) system. NCA plays an integral role in policy development and implementation for natural resources management
- From the perspective of developing a SAP project, a paradigm shift would include:
- Explicit quantification, valuation and attribution of ecosystem services in the project;
- Capacity-building to incorporate NCA into national planning.
*Please note:
"GCF Sectoral Guides’ Summaries (GCF, 2022)" provides comprehensive overviews of ten priority sectors for the Green Climate Fund. For each sector, the Guides define major paradigm shifting pathways, outline main barriers, and explain the role of GCF financing. These ten sectors are:
- Agriculture and food security: Focus on resilient agroecology, climate-informed advisory services, and reconfiguring food systems.
- Cities, buildings, and urban systems: Emphasize decarbonizing urban energy, energy-efficient buildings, compact resilient urban development, and circular urban economies.
- Ecosystems and ecosystem services: Support ecosystem-based management of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems for adaptation and mitigation.
- Forests and land use: Prioritize protecting natural forests, restoring degraded landscapes, and sustainably managing productive forest lands.
- Energy access and power generation: Transition to low-emission power generation, efficient transmission/distribution, and inclusive access to modern renewable energy.
- Climate information and early warning systems: Strengthen climate information services, impact-based multi-hazard early warning systems, and investment/financial analytics for resilience.
- Health and wellbeing: Build climate-resilient health systems, advisory/risk management services, and foster community-driven adaptation.
- Water security: Promote water conservation, re-use, integrated water resources management, and resilient infrastructure to cope with climate extremes.
- Low emission transport: Accelerate shift to low-emission public transport, rapid electrification, and new zero-emission fuels.
- Energy efficiency: Scale up efficiency in energy-intensive industries, enhance building/space efficiency, and enable market switch to high-efficiency appliances.
AP-PLAT’s GCF Concept Note Navigator Tool refers to this document to match each country’s activities to the paradigm shift pathways described in the Sectoral Guides. This enables country teams to align their project concepts with the most impactful, transformational initiatives per GCF's strategic priorities.
However as of August 2025, the "Sectoral Guides' Summaries" document is unfortunately no longer available on the GCF’s official website. For current reference and examples of eligible sectoral investments and paradigm shifts, we have referred to the SAP Technical Guidelines provided by GCF.
