Japan International Cooperation Agency

Metric	Summary
Promotion of green finance	Some progress – JICA issues ‘socially responsible investment’ bonds and is a member of the Green Finance network in Japan.
Fossil to non-fossil energy finance ratio and scaling up climate finance	Unaligned – Between 2016-18 for every $1 JICA provided to fossil fuels, $0.35 went to renewables and $0.18 went to energy networks (transmission and distribution). This is one of the lowest ratios amongst the public banks included in this analysis.
Nature based solutions	Some progress – No commitment to net-zero deforestation but repeated reference to the benefit of natural solutions for climate adaptation. Commitment to biodiversity targets.
Climate risk, resilience, and adaptation	Paris aligned – JICA has a comprehensive climate risk evaluation process in place and provides a significant proportion of climate finance towards adaptation.
Overarching climate strategy	Some progress – The climate strategy integrates both mitigation and adaptation. The overarching strategy could be stronger on climate change. A final date for full Paris alignment is missing.
Integration of climate mitigation and resilience in key sectoral strategies	Some progress – Climate considerations need to be further integrated into sectoral policies. Some have been written before the Paris Agreement in 2015 and therefore require updating to reflect this.
Institutional leadership	Some progress – JICA has extensive partnerships with other development finance institutions and initiatives.
Energy access and fuel poverty	Unaligned – JICA supports the implementation of SDG 7 (access to energy for all) but there does not appear to be a minimum definition of access or a target in place.
Energy efficiency strategy, standards and investment	Unaligned – Few energy efficiency standards appear to exist across sectors.
Fossil fuel exclusion policies	Unaligned – JICA has committed to end international finance for “new unabated coal power generation”. No otehr fossil fuel exclusions in place.
Greenhouse gas accounting and reduction	Unaligned – Greenhouse gas accounting only appears to apply to mitigation projects and no inclusion threshold is suggested. It does not appear to have a portfolio level target to reduce emissions.
Shadow carbon pricing	Unaligned – No consistent shadow carbon price appears to be applied at JICA.
Country level work	Unaligned – Majority of country assistance policies only have passing references to climate change and no mention of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Technical assistance for implementing Paris goals	Unaligned  – Technical assistance in climate change is a priority area for JICA. However, some wider technical assistance is misaligned with Paris goals.
Transparency of climate finance data	Some progress – Adequate levels of data are provided. Increased granularity of reporting is needed.

Top recommendations

• JICA should implement a fossil fuel exclusion aligned with 1.5°C global temperature goals to ensure investments for all future projects are compatible with the Paris Agreement.
• JICA should develop an energy access target and monitoring process aligned with SEforAll’s Multi-Tier Framework.
• JICA should further integrate country NDCs and Paris temperature goals into their country assistance policies to support recipient nations in their transitions toward Paris Alignment.