The 10th Exchange Series

Topic: Effective Capacity Building for Accessing Climate Finance: Examples and Experiences

Dear friends,

 

How time flies. This email marks the 10th Exchange, which means this is also the 10th time I am seeking your inputs on key adaptation topics. Thank you very much for contributing so actively in these past discussions. I am encouraged to see how this community has grown over the years. I am also grateful for all the ideas and insights shared, discussed, and learned.

 

In this 10th Exchange, I hope to do things a little different. I would like to expand our regular discussion by getting more adaptation experts involved in taking the conversation forward.

 

So please allow me to introduce Dr. Piyachatr Pradubraj, whom I work with at USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific. She is the project’s Regional Technical Coordinator and she also leads our Government Training Support Program (GTSP) – a program that addresses the region’s capacity building needs for adaptation.

 

We developed this program recognizing that project preparation is generally not done by government officials, but rather done by consultants, NGOs, or academics. If we want to see ownership and sustainability of adaptation activities, we need to make sure that countries themselves develop the necessary capacities to manage the project preparation process.

 

Indeed, this is a task not easy to accomplish. I am looking to both you and Dr. Piyachatr for some answers to help shed light on this key issue of effective capacity building, which I believe many of us are still figuring out the best and most efficient ways to deliver real impact on the ground. Khun Piyachatr, please.

 

Dr. Peter N. King
Senior Advisor, Adaptation Project Preparation and Finance
USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific

 

Thank you very much for the kind introduction, Peter.

 

Dear colleagues,

 

It is a privilege to be able to use this Exchange platform to reach out to you, both government officials and development partners involved in climate change adaptation projects and activities.

 

As Peter has mentioned, I work at USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific, mainly supporting the capacity building component of the project, particularly the Government Training Support Program. I know all of our GTSP participants are included in this Exchange community and I have seen that a few of you are very active in previous discussions. Thank you for those valuable insights. Now I hope you – and others who have attended climate change adaptation-related capacity building events, or have designed one – are able to share your thoughts on some of my questions below.

 

Peter talks about the issue of effective capacity building that we need to figure out. I think before we go further we would need to break this down to two separate thoughts: To successfully achieve capacity building objectives, are we referring to the effective methods or modalities for capacity building? Or are we focusing on the actual capacities needed to access climate finance? With this in mind, please consider the following questions:

 

1. From your experience, what do you think are the necessary skills and capacities government officials – both at the national and local levels – need to manage the project preparation process and, in turn, access climate finance, both internationally and domestically. In other words, what do you think is lacking? And why?
2. Over the past years, there have been more and more activities led by the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund, and GIZ to build climate finance ‘readiness’. What components of these activities would you think are the most effective and important? What modalities do you think work best?
3. A lot of capacity building activities are centered on building personal capacity (i.e. capacities of individual government staff). In practical terms, how do we ensure that this leads to building institutional capacities, which is oftentimes the desired objective of many capacity building programs? How do we ensure impact?

 

I am very much looking forward to hearing your views. Thank you once again for the opportunity.

 

Best regards,

 

Piyachatr Pradubraj, Ph.D.
Regional Technical Coordinator
USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific

 

*To respond, please email your thoughts and comments to: the-exchange@adapt-asia.org