Learning to Adapt:

One of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Global Network’s objectives is to support sustained peer learning and exchange among countries around the world on the NAP process. This piece looks at how the Network has worked with three countries in our first peer group of Targeted Topics Forum countries—Grenada, Albania, and the Philippines—to facilitate continuous learning and action based on lessons that emerge from Network activities.

Climate change is already beginning to have an impact on livelihoods in many developing countries.

While countries urgently need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst effects of global warming, the question isn’t whether or not we’ll need to adapt to the effects of climate change, but to what extent? As communities come to terms with a more variable climate in which extreme weather events are more frequent and more intense, we urgently need strategies to safeguard vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

Important lessons are emerging as countries begin engaging in the National Adaptation Plan process, which was created by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to guide countries’ medium- to long-term planning for climate change adaptation. The NAP process is designed to be country-driven and each country’s NAP will be unique, tailored to address the specific adaptation challenges it faces.

But given the urgency with which vulnerable countries need to adapt to climate change, it is vital that these lessons and best practices reach an audience of international adaptation planners so that adaptation efforts can keep pace as new climate threats emerge.

South-South peer-learning on national adaptation planning is one of the key aims of NAP Global Network, which was created two years with funding from the United States and Germany.

The NAP Global Network is supporting countries to learn from their peers, and creating opportunities for participants to act on the lessons that emerge from these exchanges.

Representatives from Grenada, Albania and the Philippines were among the first peer group of adaptation planners from developing countries to participate in the NAP Global Network’s first Targeted Topics Forums (TTFs) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2015.

Each TTF looks at specific challenges that countries commonly encounter during the NAP process, and the key challenge that this TTF addressed was: how can governments integrate adaptation planning into integrate sector planning?

Through discussions, we learned that there is a spectrum of approaches that countries are taking to initiate integration of adaptation considerations across sectors.

In Grenada, we heard about a sector-led approach: sectors had already begun integrating adaptation considerations into strategies and plans with the support from the Environment Division in the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and development partners. What was missing was a coordinated and coherent approach at the national level. Through the NAP process, Grenada is taking stock of ongoing adaptation efforts to identify gaps and priorities for climate-proofing its national development plan.

In June 2016, the Network supported the Albanian government to hold a NAP Assembly that would launch the Albanian NAP document, bringing together key stakeholders in their NAP process to look at how they could move ahead with its implementation.

At the request of Albania’s NAP climate change focal point, the NAP Global Network supported peers from the Philippines and Albania to share experiences with their respective NAP processes during the Assembly.

Noel Gaerlan, the Climate Change Commissioner for the Philippines who attended on behalf of his country, said: “For us, the opportunity to be able to sit down with specific countries like Albania is beneficial because we can learn new things, including the current challenges they are facing, and we may have similarities that we can also address in our country.”

Gaerlan was particularly interested in the institutional arrangements that Albania was using; although Philippines has an institutional arrangement in place, Gaerlan was interested in finding out ways of streamlining these arrangements.

Ernest Shtepani, a participant from Albania’s Directory of Territorial Development, noted how he planned to address lessons learned from the Philippines in his future work on the NAP process, particularly in relation to ensuring resources were available to support implementation of Albania’s NAP at local levels: “The Philippines have the People’s Survival Fund, which has an adaptation focus to deal with the acute climate problems they face. In Albania, we are interested in exploring if our regional development fund could be activated as a mechanism to finance climate change adaptation projects.”

Likewise, Albania’s Ms. Dibra said that “it was very useful to listen and learn from Philippines’ and Grenada’s experiences on their institutional arrangements.” As Albania shifts its focus to financing the implementation of their NAP, she also noted Grenada’s approach to using the “NAP process as an opportunity to strengthen their institutional capacities and be prepared to access the Green Climate Fund.”

Martina Duncan, who represented Grenada during the peer exchange, also saw Albania’s NAP Assembly as a learning opportunity for her country. She noted that she would be interested in hosting a similar event when her country was finalizing their NAP document, and took action to make it happen.