From Caribbean360

BELMOPAN, Belize, Tuesday July 29, 2014, CMC – The Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) says it will implement an Euro 12.8 million (One Euro =US$1.29 cents) project later this year to address to address ecosystems-based adaptation.

The CCCCC said the project will be carried out under an agreement with the German Development Bank (KfW) that seeks to protect the region’s extensive coastal resources through a combination of ecosystems-based adaptation and environmental engineering approaches.

“The comprehensive investment under the initiative developed by the Centre, in conjunction with the KfW, will focus on enhancing the resilience of the region’s coastal resources to the impacts of climate change and climate variability,” the CCCCC said in a statement following its board of governors meeting here last weekend.

CCCCC executive director Dr. Kenrick Leslie says the Centre has been “working with national governments to put together programmes that would help them develop bankable projects that can be funded under the various mechanisms under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The Centre is putting maximum effort to ensure CARICOM member states get their fair share of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Adaptation Fund (AF) and other funds to help them in their adaptation efforts. That is our primary thrust, to meet the mandate given to us by the regional Heads.”

He said as a result, the CCCCC has applied to be a regional implementing entity for the Adaptation Fund, and is strengthening its capacity by establishing a Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to better prepare it to function as an implementing agency with the requisite technical capacity to institute projects on par with international organizations operating in the region.

The new unit will also advance the Centre’s capacity to advise and help governments develop, monitor and evaluate programmes in accordance with its mandate as the region’s key node of information and action on climate change.

Chairman of the board of governors, Dr Leonard Nurse, said the changes were necessary given the Centre’s shift from a project-based orientation to more programmatic activities in a bid to ensure its long-term sustainability.

He noted that the Centre, which is primarily funded through grants and not government subventions, is advancing efforts to set up an independent Trust Fund and that Trinidad and Tobago has already made a donation of one million US dollars.

It is hoped that the fund will be administered by the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Plans have also been announced for the CCCC to acquire its own headquarter building.

The meeting here has announced plans for CCCCC deepening its existing relations with the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA.

“The Board also approved plans for institutional strengthening, including pursuing a not-for-profit status to enable greater resource mobilization to address climate variability and change; entering bilateral discussions for the establishment of a new multipurpose facility (and) strengthening coordination among regional negotiators,” the CCCCC statement added.

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