AP-PLAT Participated in JICA Training Course on Climate Finance

Event	JICA FY2025 Knowledge Co-Creation Program (KCCP) “Enhancing Access to Climate Finance: Theory and Application for Practitioners”
Date	26 January 2026
Place	National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Japan
Organizers	Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Overseas Environmental Cooperation Center, Japan (OECC)

Participants in Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s training course on enhancing access to climate finance visited the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in January 2026, where they attended two lectures delivered by AP-PLAT.

JICA Course Overview

Every year, JICA offers a range of courses under its Knowledge Co-Creation Program. The course “Enhancing Access to Climate Finance: Theory and Application for Practitioners” was conducted from December 1, 2025, to January 30, 2026, and consisted of an online phase followed by an in-person training component in Japan.

Participants came from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean, with representation from countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Jamaica, Malawi, Mozambique, Oman, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The two-month course covered both theoretical foundations and practical skills for improving access to climate finance, with a strong emphasis on hands-on application. The curriculum included lectures, practical workshops, discussions, field visits, and a final project and presentation.

AP-PLAT’s Contribution

AP-PLAT contributed to the program through two lectures.

In the first lecture, Dr. Yuji Masutomi introduced NIES, the Climate Change Adaptation Center (CCCA), and their role within Japan’s institutional framework for climate change adaptation. He explained how this framework links local and national levels, connecting high-level policy with on-the-ground implementation to support climate adaptation efforts across the country. Dr. Masutomi also introduced AP-PLAT’s climate projection tool ClimoCast and guided participants through hands-on exercises. By the end of the session, participants were able to obtain temperature and precipitation projection data for their hometowns under different climate scenarios, climate models, and time horizons.

The second lecture, titled “How AP-PLAT Helps You Access Climate Finance,” was delivered by Ms. Reiko Seki, who introduced two additional AP-PLAT tools: the recently launched Green Climate Fund (GCF) Concept Note Navigator and the Climate Impact Viewer. Participants then engaged in hands-on exercises using both tools.

AP-PLAT greatly appreciates the feedback provided by participants, including the following points:

• The GCF Concept Note Navigator currently contains Concept Note samples only from Asia-Pacific countries, which limits its usefulness for participants from Africa and the Caribbean.
• While the Climate Impact Viewer provides many valuable datasets, it is not always clear what kind data are available and how they can be used. Improving the user interface and data presentation would help make the tool more accessible to non-scientific users. Some of these issues are expected to be addressed in the upcoming renewed version.

AP-PLAT sincerely thanks the course participants, as well as the JICA and OECC course coordinators, for their active engagement, and valuable feedback during and after the visit. We look forward to continued collaboration in the future.

Related Information

• JICA Knowledge Co-Creation Program (KCCP)
• Previous AP-PLAT lectures for JICA:
  AP-PLAT Participated in JICA Training Workshop on Climate Change Adaptation (October 2025)
  AP-PLAT Participated in JICA Capacity Development Training on Climate Change and Development (September 2025)
  NIES Hosts JICA Training Workshop on Climate Finance: Utilizing Climate Data for GCF Concept notes (January 2025)
  NIES Hosts JICA Trainees for Climate Change Adaptation Workshop (September 2024)

(Posted : 12/Feb/2026)