FAO utilises GCF Readiness Programme to help developing countries address climate change

12 Jun 2018

The Green Climate Fund (GCF)'s Readiness Programme, which aims to build capacity in developing countries to implement country-led national climate adaptation and mitigation plans, has been adopted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). FAO, under the Paris Agreement, will support 10 projects in countries such as Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and South America to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, limit global temperature rise by 2% and support agriculture and food security systems to the effects of climate change.

Kate Holt/AusAID via Wikimedia Commons

Funded by the GCF, the tenth FAO Readiness project to be approved is in Guyana and brings with it $7m in contributions to the FAO from the UN's climate fund since December 2017.

"We are working with countries to ready them to take climate action in the near future. This includes enabling the poorest families to produce food while adopting low-emission systems and building their climate resilience.

The tenth Readiness project to be approved is an important milestone for our work with the Green Climate Fund," said René Castro, assistant director-general of FAO's Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water Department.

Building climate-resilient futures

The projects - in Burkina Faso, Congo, Equatorial Guinea (two projects), Guyana, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Saint Kitts and Nevis - will cover restoring degraded lands and forests, coping with water scarcity, developing a sustainable and low-emission livestock sector, applying climate-smart agriculture methods, and disaster risk reduction for climate-resilient rural livelihoods.

In Burkina Faso, for example, FAO is working with government counterparts to prepare a strategic analysis of the adaptation and mitigation potential of forests and agricultural land, and in Lao PDR, FAO is helping prepare a forestry investment plan to better engage with the private sector on climate change adaptation.

In the other countries, FAO is supporting governments to align their climate change strategies with their commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals, providing training for ministries and other institutions, helping establish mechanisms to build consensus on national priorities, and supporting specific technical work such as scientific studies.

In total, FAO has 41 Readiness projects in 34 countries in the pipeline, with around 15 to be considered during the next approval cycle in September.