Co-organised by Triple Capital, the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF) and the CVF-V20 Secretariat. This session reflected on the experiences and lessons learned from implementing locally-led adaptation projects in Namibia, Rwanda and Antigua and Barbuda, and drew lessons for other countries and climate funders looking to implement enhanced direct access projects.
Local communities in climate-vulnerable countries are at the frontlines of the climate change crisis but often have limited capacity and resources to adapt to the negative impacts. While the principles for locally-led adaptation, published in 2021 and endorsed by over 120 governments, NGOs and funders, call for devolution of decision-making and patient and predictable funding to the local level, their implementation has been limited. The Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund are among the climate funders who have piloted funding approaches that deliver adaptation finance to local communities.
Namibia’s Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) implemented the first GCF “enhanced direct access” project to strengthen climate resilience through community-based natural resource management, through a small grants programme that provided funding directly to local communities. Antigua and Barbuda’s Department of Environment implemented the second GCF EDA project which aimed to strengthen the resilience of communities and businesses to hurricanes in three Caribbean island countries through a small grants and revolving loans facility. Rwanda’s Green Fund supports local communities and local governments’ climate resilience through a small grants mechanism, with funding from the Adaptation Fund. These approaches represent a paradigm shift in financing climate change adaptation and resilience, as they put the communities most vulnerable to climate change impacts in the driver’s seat of defining and implementing the interventions needed to build their resilience.
The discussion unlocked best practices from the three countries in accessing direct access finance for community-led adaptation projects, the need to integrate capacity building in community-led adaptation projects to ensure project sustainability and awareness building at the grassroots level and to engage the community in project designs, development, implementation and, monitoring and evaluation throughout the project, came out strongly in the discussion. Antigua and Barbuda shared a great example of integrating private sector in community-led adaptation projects to help scale up efforts. Community-centred approaches have seemed to work well in both three countries, however, programmatic approaches were proposed in the discussion to be more impactful to ensure that projects are continuous and cover multiple areas, therefore, addressing more than one challenge within a community.
Panellists: From far right Aina-Maria Iteta; Laurene Manzi; Garth Simon; Louise Brown and; the panel moderator Toini Amutenya.
Direct Access Entities bridge the gap of disconnect to funding access in developing countries, with Namibia having only one accredited entity to the GCF. There is a need to simplify funding access for direct access entities and re-evaluate their accreditation to scale up to other windows of opportunities, a good example is the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia which has successfully implemented four GCF projects so far but, still can only implement category C projects and access funding within USD10 million, limiting Namibia’s ability to access adequate funding required to realise its NDC. The panel’s recommendations to the funder is for funders to to allow entities such as the EIF to take on high-risk projects to implement effective projects. The discussion also reflected on the need to streamline the needs of the countries in project development, ensuring national ownership as vulnerabilities differ from country to country. Policy frameworks by funders are stressing entities as they reduce the time required for programming initiatives. Funders should reach out to entities on the ground and learn of their needs which often reflect the national needs and vulnerabilities of the country.
The session’s panellists consisted of Laurene Manzi the Climate Finance Analyst for the Rwanda’s Green Fund; Garth Simon the Monitoring and Evaluation Associate for the Department of Environment of Antigua and Barbuda; Aina-Maria Iteta the Executive for Business Strategy and Performance Management at the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia and; Louise Brown the Director for Triple Capital. Toini Amutenya, the Research and Communications Officer for Triple Capital, moderated the session.