Climate finance does not scale on capital alone. It scales on what practitioners learn along the way: what works in a given market, what stalls, and what needs to change and what can be replicated elsewhere.
In 2025, the Mitigation Action Facility deepened its role as a Knowledge and Learning Hub, turning insights from portfolio implementation into practical guidance for supported projects, partners and the wider climate finance community. And in 2026, that work continued to evolve: through portfolio-wide and thematic exchanges, independent evaluations, international dialogues, tailored project support and a growing library of knowledge products.
This is not the work of one component of the Technical Support Unit (TSU). Knowledge and learning cut across the Mitigation Action Facility’s work – from monitoring and evaluation, project and financial mechanism support to GESI, communications, sector expertise, partnerships and portfolio management. Together, these activities reflect the Mitigation Action Facility’s commitment to being a learning organisation: one that systematically connects implementation experience with continuous improvement, future project design and wider climate action.
Across this work, four dimensions are particularly important: people, processes, technology and governance.
“Every project in our portfolio generates insight: about markets, about barriers, about what actually moves capital. Our task is to make sure that insight does not stay with one project. When evidence from implementation feeds back into design, the whole portfolio gets stronger. “
— Julia Olivier, Advisor at the Technical Support Unit (TSU), Monitoring and Evaluation
Connecting people through exchange
Knowledge moves through relationships. In 2025, the Mitigation Action Facility fostered exchange and collaboration across its global network through a wide range of internal and external formats:
- 14 international events,
- engagement with more than 70 institutions across the climate finance ecosystem,
- over 10 virtual project exchange formats, and
- two in-person meetings of the Advisory Committee, which brings together leaders in climate policy, green finance and sustainability.
Peer learning between projects proved particularly valuable. At the transport sector workshop in Nairobi, projects at different stages of the project cycle exchanged experiences on financial mechanisms and private sector engagement — including cross-country dialogue between Rwanda – E-Mobility and Kenya – Small Vehicles E-Mobility, and between Nepal – Electric Transport and Pakistan – Battery Swapping Network. On the sidelines of SB62 in Bonn, the Connect & Co-Create networking event, co-hosted with the NDC Partnership, brought together over 40 practitioners to explore what makes transformational climate projects succeed.
Virtual exchange complemented these in-person formats. Throughout 2025, projects came together through Virtual Project Meetings, learning exchanges for projects in the Detailed Preparation Phase (DPP), thematic working groups on GESI, communications and financial mechanisms, M&E consultation hours and a dedicated GESI training series. These spaces enabled project teams not only to receive technical inputs, but also to bring their own experience into the conversation; comparing approaches, discussing common challenges and learning directly from peers.
That exchange has continued in 2026. The Facility has already convened another DPP learning exchange and its bi-annual Virtual Project Meeting, providing structured opportunities for projects at different stages to share experiences and strengthen implementation. The GESI network and Communications Focal Person Network build communities of practice around cross-cutting challenges and expertise, helping knowledge travel horizontally across the portfolio rather than only between individual projects and the TSU.
Learning also extends beyond the portfolio. During SB64 in Bonn, the Mitigation Action Facility and the NDC Partnership convened practitioners, policymakers, implementers, financiers and technical partners to exchange practical insights on moving from Project Concepts towards scalable and bankable mitigation action. During London Climate Action Week 2026, the Mitigation Action Facility convened a transport policy roundtable and contributed to discussions on climate and infrastructure finance, while bilateral engagements with international partners created further opportunities to exchange knowledge and strengthen collaboration.
Together, these formats demonstrate that the Knowledge and Learning Hub is not a single event series. It is an ecosystem of relationships through which experience moves between projects, sectors, countries, partners and the wider climate finance community.
Learning processes that generate and use evidence
Continuous learning and adaptive management remained central to portfolio implementation in 2025. The Mitigation Action Facility published its Third Interim Evaluation (2020–2024) together with its Management Response — a public account not only of what the evaluation found, but of how the Mitigation Action Facility is responding.
Alongside it, six Evaluation and Learning Exercises (four mid-term, two final) were completed in 2025. These independent evaluations are designed to support reflection and adaptive implementation rather than compliance alone. Crucially, their value lies not only in producing evaluation reports, but in translating findings into action by projects and the Mitigation Action Facility.
That learning cycle is continuously visible in 2026. Further mid-term and final ELE reports, management responses and concise learning factsheets have been made available for different projects across the portfolio. Because projects are at different stages of implementation, these exercises generate different kinds of evidence: mid-term ELEs can inform course correction while implementation is still under way; final ELEs capture results and lessons that can inform future programming and project design. Together, they build a growing evidence base on how transformational mitigation action works in different sectors and country contexts.
The same principle applies to thematic learning. The evaluation of the Mitigation Action Facility’s Gender Action Plan 2023–2025, published in 2026, examined how GESI has been operationalised across the portfolio and is informing the development of GAP 2.0. This illustrates a wider principle of the Hub: evaluation is most valuable when findings are connected to decisions, updated guidance and future practice.
Tailored technical support reinforces this feedback loop. In 2025, 12 mitigation support assignments strengthened project design and mitigation potential; 16 financial mechanism services provided advisory support, workshops and knowledge products on innovative financing — with wider insights captured in the From grants to guarantees report; and 20 GESI support services were delivered, anchored by the GESI Analysis and the 2025 training series.
This is where the Mitigation Action Facility’s role as a Knowledge and Learning Hub becomes particularly tangible: knowledge is not simply collected after implementation. It is generated, tested, shared and fed back into ongoing project support.
Turning knowledge into an accessible resource
Learning only creates wider value when others can find and use it. In 2025, the Facility therefore continued strengthening the infrastructure through which evidence and experience are captured and shared. A portfolio-wide M&E database was introduced to strengthen monitoring, aggregation and learning across projects, while communications channels – including the general newsletter, project-tailored newsletters and LinkedIn page – supported regular dissemination.
A broad set of knowledge products followed: sectoral knowledge briefs on energy, industry and transport; evaluation and learning factsheets from projects in China, India, Colombia and Thailand; papers on transformational change and the Knowledge and Learning Hub; and explainer videos on industrial decarbonisation and the Transformational Change Measurement Framework.
These resources are deliberately diverse. A project team looking for practical lessons from a peer may need something different from an applicant designing a new financial mechanism, a GESI focal person strengthening a project approach, or a climate finance practitioner interested in evidence across several countries. Reports, factsheets, guidance, videos, webinars and exchange formats therefore complement one another.
The growing Knowledge & Learning Hub and website download library bring these resources together, making accumulated portfolio experience accessible beyond the individual projects that generated it.
Guidance that sets the direction
2025 also marked significant progress in institutional guidance and strategic learning frameworks:
- The Knowledge Management and Learning Roadmap 2026–2028 was approved, informed by feedback sessions and the findings of the Third Interim Evaluation
- The Theory of Change was updated to introduce intermediate outcomes capturing early signals of systemic change at project and programme level
- Guidance on the Transformational Change Measurement Framework (TCMF) was published to strengthen project design, monitoring and evaluation
- The Carbon Market Policy was approved and launched, supporting projects exploring opportunities under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
- A Risk Management Framework was introduced, including the Risk Appetite Statement, project risk guidance and guidance for monitoring and reporting
- GESI considerations were further mainstreamed through updated Proposal templates, a dedicated GESI guidance document and an external GAP evaluation informing the development of GAP 2.0
- Internal templates and external guidance were developed across the Call for Projects process, including webinars on new features, the Open Application Platform and lessons learnt for previous Calls
- Importantly, these are not isolated products. They show how learning becomes institutionalised: evidence from projects and evaluations informs guidance; guidance influences project design and implementation; implementation generates new evidence; and that evidence feeds the next learning cycle.
From a hub of resources to a culture of continuous learning
The Knowledge Management and Learning Roadmap 2026–2028 provides the frame for the next phase, but implementation is already under way.
The exchanges, evaluations, networks, events and resources delivered during the first part of 2026 show how the Facility is putting the principles developed in 2025 into practice. Virtual Project Meetings connect projects in implementation. DPP exchanges help emerging projects learn before implementation begins. GESI and communications networks connect specialist focal persons across countries. ELEs turn individual project experience into evidence that can travel across the portfolio. Engagements at the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies, London Climate Action Week and other international fora bring portfolio experience into wider climate finance conversations — while bringing external perspectives back into the Facility.
This breadth also underlines an important feature of the Mitigation Action Facility’s Knowledge and Learning Hub: knowledge and learning are a shared responsibility across the TSU. Monitoring and evaluation generate evidence. Sector and project expertise help interpret it. Financial mechanism support translates experience into approaches that can mobilise investment. GESI work ensures learning captures who participates and benefits. Communications makes insights accessible. Partnerships connect them to external communities. Portfolio management and governance create the structures through which lessons can influence future decisions.
The Hub is therefore more than a repository of publications – and more than a discrete workstream. It is the way the Mitigation Action Facility seeks to connect its portfolio, learn from implementation and continuously improve how it supports transformational climate action.
Applicants to the Call for Projects 2026 are already benefiting from this accumulated experience. Guidance, templates and lessons developed through previous Calls and portfolio implementation allow a new generation of projects to start not from zero, but from what the Mitigation Action Facility and its partners have already learned.
And the learning cycle continues. Every new project exchange, evaluation, implementation challenge, partnership and knowledge product adds another piece of evidence — evidence that can strengthen the project concerned, inform others across the portfolio and contribute to the wider climate finance community.
For regular updates on our portfolio, publications and events: