Italy
Support to the Adaptation Fund from Italy’s Ministry of Environment and Energy Security
Since 2015, Italy’s bilateral cooperation activities have been enlarged to new areas of the world. The strategy underlying the priority countries is defined in agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
In particular, the objective is to support countries that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change: Small Island Developing States and the African countries. The Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Energy Security has signed 28 bilateral agreements with developing countries, including regional groups to support mitigation and adaptation actions, to facilitate access to climate finance, to provide capacity building and technology transfer. Priority actions have been focused on eight areas: management of extreme events, promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency, water resources management, waste management, air quality, address forest degradation, land rehabilitation and soil improvement, and sustainable mobility.
Since 2015, Italy is a contributor to the Adaptation Fund (AF) through MASE. The AF provides finance to projects that help vulnerable communities in developing countries to adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change while providing an innovative direct access modality that allows accredited national institutions in developing countries to access financing and manage projects directly. Italy provided contributions totalling US$ 71,650 million for the period 2015-2022. These contributions helped the Fund to meet its resource mobilization targets and to assist vulnerable communities’ efforts in developing countries to adapt to climate change.
Furthermore, MASE has worked in synergy with the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat and National Implementing Entities in order to scale up AF’s projects through its bilateral cooperation programmes and activities.
In the context of the bilateral cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of Ethiopia, IMELS provides USD 4.2 million of funding to support the implementation of a three year project called “Climate Smart Integrated Rural Development”, as a complementary initiative that builds on the AF-funded project in Ethiopia. In particular, its main purpose is to manage the risks from recurring droughts, floods, both from current risks and under future climate change – through an integrated water, agriculture and natural resource management approach. This approach is complemented with a climate resilient livelihoods diversification programme. The project is targeted in two climate sensitive and vulnerable pastoralist areas of Ethiopia such as Afar and Somali regions.
The AF has created tangible and positive results on the ground, strengthening capacity in developing countries. It has demonstrated its effectiveness as a global financial mechanism. For this reason, in the context of its collaboration with International Financial Institutions, Italy has promoted a fruitful partnership and we look further future innovative collaboration, to support innovative financial instrument to promote adaptation including by mobilizing private sector investment. Furthermore, at national level, the Italian Ministry for Environment, and the Energy Security (MASE), in charge of climate change policy, has approved the Italian National Adaptation Strategy to Climate Change (NAS) in 2015, which analyzed the state of scientific knowledge on impacts and vulnerability to climate change for the major socio-economic and environmental sectors. The National Adaptation Plan, started in 2016, is currently being finalized.
Up to 2022, Italy provided 47.6% of its climate finance allocation to adaptation and cross-cutting activities. Moreover as a commitment taken with other donors, Italy aims to maintain the balance between mitigation and adaptation support, while as general commitment, Italy will nearly triple its climate financial commitment to 1.4 billion dollars a year for the next 5 years,
Italy is particularly interested to support those developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, such as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and African States, taking into account country-driven approaches. In this context, Italy in particular values the Adaptation Fund’s capacity to effectively target public and grant-based resources for adaptation towards the most vulnerable and their communities, in order to support priorities identified in the national adaptation strategies and plans.
This information has been provided by the Government of Italy.
Contributions to the Adaptation Fund
| Contribution Effective Date | Total Contribution (US$) |
|---|---|
| November 2015 | 2,170,000 |
| April 2017 | 5,580,000 |
| December 2017 | 8,620,000 |
| February 2019 | 7,920,000 |
| November 2020 | 36,710,000 |
| December 2022 | 10,640,000 |
| Grand Total | 71,650,000 |
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