According to all respondent groups, mainstreaming climate change into development planning in recipient countries is an important pre-condition for effective climate finance. One reason for this is that it is important for the core government ministries responsible for national planning and budgeting to acknowledge the contribution of climate smart and resilient activities towards mid- and long-term development goals, and mainstream climate actions and finance into the decision-making of sectoral ministries, departments and agencies. Providers also noted that this was a vital pre-condition for channelling climate finance through budget support. In contrast, the absence of an integrated national vision on climate change was reported as a contributing factor towards providers’ decisions to finance their own priorities.