Briefing on the 11th meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board

By Alpha O. Kaloga and Sven Harmeling, 14th September 2010

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Summary

The 11th meeting of the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) will take place from the 16th to the 17th of September in Bonn. It will be preceded by closed meetings of the Project and Programme Review Committee (PPRC) and the Ethics and Finance Committee (EFC). This meeting will be the last before the next COP in Cancún, where the AFB will also have to report on its progress since Copenhagen.

The following results may be achieved at the meeting:

Adoption of full projects and concepts: the Board will have to consider 8 project proposals. Up to three fully-developed projects (Senegal, Egypt and Honduras) may be approved, with, however, the Senegalese project being the only one where the concept was already approved at the last meeting. The Egypt´s project concept was rejected at the last meeting. It will be interesting to see whether the mariculture project has been sufficiently improved;
In addition to Senegal, Jamaica and Uruguay are likely to become the next direct access countries, since approval of their nominations for National Implementing Entities is recommended.

Furthermore, the Accreditation Panel will present a strategy to support the accreditation of National Implementing Entities and thereby trying to help managing the challenges that more than 30 countries which have expressed their interest in direct access have identified. A draft communication strategy is expected to assist the Fund in its outreach.

However, the AFB will also have to consider progress on challenges which have not been resolved yet for several meetings. This includes the question of how to prioritise the allocation of funding among countries, regions and projects. Secondly, the AFB has to find clarifications for issues that emerged from the review of projects. One of these is that the consultation of stakeholders in the project preparation and implementation on the one hand lacks clearer guidance, and on the other hand is still missing in the project review criteria, despite its appearance in the project templates. There is no doubt that a meaningful stakeholder consultation should be part of any project funded, not the least to contribute to the strategic priority of the Fund to “give special attention to the particular needs of the most vulnerable communities.

Just a few weeks ahead of the CMP6 in Cancun, where the Board members will convene for its 12th Meeting, the Board can be satisfied with the progress it has achieved in 2010. Nonetheless challenges remain for the future work.

last updated on 15 September, 2010