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Development of a National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) in Eritrea
Summary:
The objective of the proposed NAPA project for Eritrea is to develop a country-wide programme of immediate and urgent project-based adaptation activities that address the current and anticipated adverse effects of climate change, including extreme events.
This project fully reflects the priority measures identified by Eritrea in its NAPA, i.e “implement an climate change adaptation”. Furthermore, the project will provide a process for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs to adapt to climate change – those for which further delay would increase vulnerability and/or costs at a later stage. The Government has been involved in a number of programs, which are related to the LDCF project.
Adaptation Experience:
Setting of evaluation criteria for the NAPA identified projects involves a mix of a nationally/locally driven criteria in alignment with guiding element specified under Article 7 of the UNFCCC Decision 28/CP.7 such as: Participative process, Multi-disciplinary approach, Sustainable development, Gender equality, Country-driveness, Cost-effectiveness, Simplicity, and country context.
In this context, policies and action plans related to national development priorities such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan, National Action Plan to combat Desertification, Eritrea’s Initial National Communications, National Environment Management Plan were taken into consideration. Other elements such as political, financial, cultural and technical were factored, and a scoring system for objectively selecting/prioritizing the proposed adaptation measures was devised.
Results and Learning:
In understanding the principles of the MCA methodology the Ministry of Environment and the NAPA Task Team found that the local cultural context of the faa-Eritrea consensus approach methodology builds on the same principles. The added-value of the Eritrea consensus approach is that it went in line with the cultural settings, and thus was more conducive to the local environment. The process therefore became more effective in acquiring information from the community people. There was ease with which the issues were addressed in a gender-sensitive manner and it allowed for gender-based concerns on the environment and climate change to be capture.
Sustainability:
Once the NAPA document was endorsed by Cabinet, we found out from experience that the fundamental criteria that the Government – in collaboration with stakeholders and development partners - used to weigh the proposed adaptation options for immediate implementation was realistically that of ‘existing and ongoing development initiatives – that posed as potential adaptation initiatives and measures’. For example, since Eritrea identified ‘water’ as its highest, most immediate and urgent adaptation action under NAPA – to be implemented, it weighed this decision (made by the communities) against those water programs that were already on ground.
It found out that Eritrea in early 2000 already took the initiative to address water in the rural areas, under a European Commission funded National Rural Water Sector project stemming 5 years, with more than $13 million Euros, addressing community resilience and rural accessibility to quantity supply of quality potable water. The process simply moved on to the second priority on the list. Eritrea then decided to use an ‘integrated approach’ (2009) to combine its priorities identified under the NAPA to strategically plan implementation of these priorities in line with its national development strategy and policies.
Replication:
Once the NAPA document was endorsed by Cabinet, we found out from experience that the fundamental criteria that the Government – in collaboration with stakeholders and development partners - used to weigh the proposed adaptation options for immediate implementation was realistically that of ‘existing and ongoing development initiatives – that posed as potential adaptation initiatives and measures’. For example, since Eritrea identified ‘water’ as its highest, most immediate and urgent adaptation action under NAPA – to be implemented, it weighed this decision (made by the communities) against those water programs that were already on ground.
It found out that Eritrea in early 2000 already took the initiative to address water in the rural areas, under a European Commission funded National Rural Water Sector project stemming 5 years, with more than $13 million Euros, addressing community resilience and rural accessibility to quantity supply of quality potable water. The process simply moved on to the second priority on the list. Eritrea then decided to use an ‘integrated approach’ (2009) to combine its priorities identified under the NAPA to strategically plan implementation of these priorities in line with its national development strategy and policies.
