By Abbas Nazil
Enhanced international collaboration is accelerating global efforts to strengthen climate transparency under the Paris Agreement, enabling countries to better track progress, identify needs and implement more ambitious climate actions.
Transparent climate action and support remain central to effective international climate cooperation.
Experts say transparency provides countries with a strong evidence base to plan actions, monitor national climate commitments and improve policies over time.
It also plays a critical role in building mutual trust among Parties by demonstrating measurable progress in implementing the Paris Agreement.
Transparency further enables donors and support providers to clearly identify where financial, technical and capacity-building assistance is most needed.
Sustained international support continues to be vital for developing countries seeking to engage fully in the Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework.
The timely submission of first biennial transparency reports under the framework has been largely made possible through coordinated international assistance.
Developing countries, in particular, have benefited from continued financial and technical support that has strengthened reporting capacity.
As nations move forward with preparing their first and second biennial transparency reports, collaboration among supporting agencies has become increasingly important.
Experts note that coordinated support helps ensure assistance is effective, aligned and responsive to national priorities.
In recent years, cooperation among international transparency partners has deepened significantly.
This progress has been driven largely by the Enhanced Transparency Framework Group of Friends.
The informal network comprises about 35 organisations and serves as a platform for communication, information sharing and joint action.
A representative of UN Climate Change noted that no single organisation can address all transparency needs alone.
The Group of Friends promotes inter-agency collaboration to deliver more coherent support and achieve greater collective impact.
Since its establishment in 2016, the network has convened more than 45 coordination meetings at global, regional and national levels.
Of these meetings, 24 were organised by UN Climate Change.
Regional and subgroup leaders have also expanded their engagement in recent years.
Key partners include the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency Global Support Programme, the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute and the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency.
Other active organisations include the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, the Partnership on Transparency in the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Development Programme.
Over the past 18 months alone, these partners have hosted 21 regional coordination meetings.
Growing regional engagement has shifted cooperation beyond information exchange toward joint planning and in-country collaboration.
Regular coordination allows partners to map activities, identify synergies and reduce duplication of efforts.
This approach supports more coherent and complementary assistance at the national level.
The network also contributed to six mandated transparency support and first biennial transparency report workshops held in 2024 and 2025.
These workshops brought together developing countries, the Global Environment Facility, implementing agencies and technical partners.
Participants shared experiences and discussed available support for preparing transparency reports.
An updated compilation of transparency assistance now provides countries with guidance on available resources and how to access them.
Looking ahead, regional and subgroup leads are expanding engagement with national institutions to strengthen follow-up actions.
Efforts are focused on translating coordination dialogue into concrete results on the ground.
At the global level, UN Climate Change will continue facilitating information sharing and coordinated planning.
By linking support providers with country needs, the ETF Group of Friends is strengthening collective capacity to track progress and implement transparency obligations.
Observers say the growing collaboration marks a major step toward effective global climate accountability.
