The African Development Bank (AfDB) hosted a Joint MDB Adaptation Finance Tracking Workshop on the sidelines of the Climate Change Conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), held from 14 to 25 May in Bonn, Germany.

The MDBs discussed the adaptation concept that they will adopt, as well as the high level principles of the joint methodology, and a roadmap to test and disclose the methodology by the 2012 UN Climate Change Conference (COP18) in late November.

"Having a joint MDB methodology for tracking aid spending that contributes to climate change adaptation means the MDBs and development partners can engage in substantive analysis of climate finance. We will be better able to measure, report and verify climate financial flows and the results they support," stated Mafalda Duarte, AfDB Chief Climate Change Specialist.

Since November 2010, a special MDB working group has focused on climate financing tracking with the AfDB coordinating efforts on adaptation and the Inter-American Development Bank on mitigation. This workshop was the most recent in a series of meetings, and allowed working group members to discuss key findings of a report commissioned by the AfDB reviewing various adaptation classification systems used by MDBs and other adaptation bodies and funds.

The methodology will continue to be refined and tested on MDBs' 2011 portfolios to ready it for presentation at COP18 in Qatar from 26 November to 7 December 2012.