(Bonn, Germany, 8 July 2013) – At its twenty-first meeting, the Adaptation Fund Board moved ahead on codifying environmental and social safeguards already inherent in the project it funds. To enhance sustainable development, entities receiving Adaptation Fund financing will identify and manage the environmental and social risks of their activities, by assessing potential environmental and social harms and then by identifying and implementing steps to avoid, minimize or mitigate those harms. These include, but are not limited to, considerations for access and equity, marginalized and vulnerable groups, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, indigenous people, core labour rights, involuntary resettlement, protection of natural habitats, and conservation of biological diversity.
The Adaptation Fund Board also requested the secretariat to draft a readiness program for the national and regional implementing entities it accredits, and through which it channels climate adaptation funds. The readiness program will focus on activities and materials that will strengthen the institutional capacity of these entities to effectively design, propose, implement and evaluate climate adaptation projects and programmes, with a view to long-term sustainability. The Adaptation Fund Board will consider this draft programme at its next meeting.
Other important outcomes of the meetings included accrediting the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS), which will now be able to submit its projects and programmes for consideration for direct financing from the Adaptation Fund. The OSS is an intergovernmental regional organization based in Tunisia. It works to foster better water management by its member countries in and around the Sahara desert, particularly in relation to underground water reservoirs.
The Board also reviewed and noted the recommendation for approval of a climate adaptation programme in Mali, for which funding is not currently available. The US$ 8,533,348 programme, to be implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, will focus on water control and retention in vulnerable water buffer zones, and will promote a range of climate resilient practices in the agro-pastoral, fisheries and forestry sectors. The programme is in the Fund’s “pipeline” of projects that are pending funding..
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The innovative Adaptation Fund finances projects and programmes that help countries adapt to the negative effects of climate change. Projects are based on the needs, views and priorities of developing, vulnerable countries. The Adaptation Fund was established under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and has committed more than US$ 184 million since 2010 to help developing countries adapt to climate change. The Fund is financed in part by government and private donors, and also from a two percent share of proceeds of Certified Emission Reductions issued under the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism projects.
Media contact: Cathryn Poff, Communications, Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat, cpoff@adaptation-fund.org or +1.202.473.5463.