NAP Expo 2024 session underlines importance of inclusive multistakeholder engagement for transformational adaptation
Transformational climate adaptation requires engaging a wide range of stakeholders from community members and policymakers to researchers and businesses at all levels. This was the message emerging from a NAP Expo technical session organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and NAP Global Network. Around 50 participants representing stakeholder groups including governments, international organizations, and climate policy and finance experts attended the session, which took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 25 April.
What is NAP Expo?
The NAP Expo is an annual outreach event organized by the Least Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG) under the UNFCCC, in collaboration with various bodies and organizations, to promote exchange of experiences and foster partnerships between a wide range of actors and stakeholders on how to advance National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). The theme of NAP Expo 2024 was “Driving Transformational Adaptation through National Adaptation Plans”, one on which FAO and UNDP have a proven pedigree working together through the multi-year SCALA programme and its predecessor, the NAP-Ag programme.
Participants in the 25 April session – “How inclusive and cross-scale stakeholder engagement can drive transformational adaptation” – heard from a number of countries outlining both challenges and opportunities related to multistakeholder engagement for NAP formulation and implementation. Multistakeholder engagement is a crucial means to ensure the NAP process is country-driven, participatory, gender-sensitive and cross-sectoral. The contributions of all stakeholders, including the private sector, are paramount to scale up transformational adaptation.
Country experiences – Haiti, Nepal and Côte d’Ivoire
In Haiti, the government is placing a strong emphasis on gender mainstreaming but there are specific challenges in adaptation, including socio-political instability and male occupation of most decision-making roles. Ms Gerty Pierre, Director of Climate Change at Haiti’s Ministry of the Environment, stressed that the country has taken measures to remedy this, including launching gender awareness-raising campaigns in different sectors (e.g. adaptation and health), improving diagnostics to empower women in agriculture and fisheries, and creating a more gender-responsive NAP process.
To bring about climate-resilient agrifood system transformation, Nepal has mapped relevant actors and created and used spaces for them to effectively voice their needs as part of the planning process. Mr Sanjeev Kumar Karn, Joint Secretary and Chief of Food Security and Food Technology at Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, outlined how the country has also used established institutional bodies – e.g. the Environmental Protection and Climate Change Management National Council – to make engagement effective for transformational adaptation at different scales and across different sectors, including agriculture.
Côte d’Ivoire highlighted the role of the private sector in implementing their NAP and strengthening the resilience of the five NAP priority sectors: agriculture, land use, water, coastal resources and health. Mr Ismail Kone, of Côte d’Ivoire’s National Program of Climate Change, emphasized challenges in the country for private sector engagement, including lack of understanding of climate change impacts among key stakeholder groups and perceived low incentives for private sector investment. Through the NAP formulation process, a thorough mapping of private sector actors and opportunities in the priority sectors was conducted, and SCALA is now building on this assessment to identify ways to further engage the private sector in the cassava and cashew nut value chains.
Breakout discussions and wrapping up
A number of lively breakout discussions then took place with more interventions from countries, including Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. Points raised included the need for: more dynamic multistakeholder processes; strong environmental safeguards to be embedded in any meaningful adaptation measures; cost-effective ways to engage communities (as costs are often too high); and greater incentives for the private sector to contribute to NAP formulation.
Welcoming the contributions of all participants on the floor and in breakout groups, UNDP’s Julie Teng said: “Transformational adaptation requires a scale of action that can only be achieved through the mobilization of all stakeholders. Synergies among support organizations, as demonstrated in this session organized by UNDP, FAO, NAP Global Network and UNCDF, are also key to optimize the technical assistance and funding available.”
FAO’s Janek Toepper concluded: “In many contexts, including smallholder farming systems in the NAP Expo host region of Asia–Pacific, adaptation investments are already being made. Now, effective feedback mechanisms are needed to link these back to NAP processes, as well as extension services and public sector ‘carrots and sticks’ to enable and incentivize further adaptation action by a wider set of actors.”
The issues raised in the session will feed into a major analysis of agrifood sector trends in NAPs that FAO and UNDP are preparing for the next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), which will take place in Azerbaijan this November.
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