Adaptation Communication Update Series: Haiti and Burkina Faso

Our country partners have been hard at work the past few months as many work toward developing their country’s first adaptation communication (ADCOM). Some are aiming to finish it in time for the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in November, and others are focusing on a deadline of early 2022. In both cases, their ultimate goal is to ensure their adaptation progress, as well as needs, lessons learned, and vulnerabilities, are taken into account in the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST) by submitting their ADCOM before the call for inputs comes to a close.

Each ADCOM will be different, reflecting countries’ varying priorities, progress, needs, and vulnerabilities. However, in the case of the 20 countries who are receiving guidance from the NAP Global Network in building their first ADCOM, a common theme emerges as they continuously refer to and leverage the country’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process.

As governments hope to build a useful and comprehensive ADCOM, well-organized resources and the sharing of knowledge between all actors involved in the process are crucial. This requires participants from government sectors, civil society organizations, the private sector, financial sector, and more to meet (whether in person following COVID-19 safety regulations or online) and ensure this document reflects on how climate change impacts livelihoods and ecosystems while at the same time identifying the opportunities for adaptation within each sector.

Burkina Faso

Government representatives of Burkina Faso held their ADCOM launch workshop for the process on August 20, 2021. To better prepare for the development of the country’s ADCOM, this meeting provided a necessary focus on the country’s adaptation priorities and progress as represented in Burkina Faso’s NAP, which was adopted in September 2015.

The chair of this meeting and NAP focal point for the country, Ouedraogo Kouka, associated the importance of the NAP to the country’s ability to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Having recently reflected on the last 6 years of implementing Burkina Faso’s first NAP for a progress report, Kouka elaborated on the NAP process’ objectives, progress, lessons learned, recommendations, and challenges that are outlined in the NAP document, as they will be critical additions to the ADCOM. The content of the country’s NAP will also provide a basis for identifying other information that will need to be collected. Once the workshop’s participants were updated on the status of the country’s adaptation efforts, a consultant was then able to follow this presentation with an overview of the ADCOM process.

The first version of Burkina Faso’s ADCOM aims to be ready for a round of reviews by the end of September 2021.

Haiti

While establishing the need for an ADCOM, the government of Haiti specified its purpose and value add for the country’s national adaptation planning process during their inception meeting on August 12, 2021. Haiti recognizes the ADCOM as an opportunity to raise awareness, whether nationally or internationally, of its strategy to manage the effects of climate change. Increasing the level of interest in the country’s fight against climate change will inform relevant parties of the gaps that need addressing, as well as the improvements and progress of their adaptation measures.

To avoid duplication of efforts with the NAP process—with the country’s first NAP on track to be launched in the coming months—and use lessons learned from building communication products for adaptation in the past, Haiti will continuously identify and address the connections with other adaptation efforts throughout the ADCOM process. Additionally, the ADCOM process will be useful in raising awareness of adaptation among stakeholders, building on a recently developed communication strategy for the NAP document. When working on the ADCOM and NAP side-by-side, governments can increase the efficiency of both processes.

Having confirmed an action plan and identified all sources of information that will be needed to create a detailed ADCOM through a gender-responsive approach, Haiti’s inception workshop marked the beginning of its ADCOM development process.

ADCOMs: Frequently Asked Questions

The NAP Global Network Secretariat is currently supporting 19 country partners with this work and has seen a number of common questions emerge on ADCOMs and how they can link to National Adaptation Plan (NAP) processes. We look at some of these questions here.