Earth Today | COVID-19 prompts postponement of Adaptation Fund board meeting

THE ADAPTATION Fund Board has postponed its 35th in-person meeting, originally planned for March 31 to April 3 on the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany, due to ongoing safety considerations and risks associated with the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The board’s incoming chair and vice-chair endorsed an alternative proposal brought forward by the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat to organise a scaled-down virtual meeting that will focus only on the most pressing agenda items and defer other items to a future face-to-face meeting to be held at a later date.

Meanwhile, the dates, details, agenda items, formats of online presentations and discussions, and other practical arrangements for the virtual meeting, are still being worked out, and will be communicated in the coming days once a concrete plan is reached.

SUSPENDED MISSION TRAVEL

The decision is aligned with guidance on international meetings and travel from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and, World Bank Group (WBG). The latter serves as the Fund’s trustee and hosts the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat.

WBG suspended mission travel to China, and advised staff to limit other global travel to essential business only, including cancelling trips for conferences and training, as well as trips for which teleconferencing could be used as a reasonable substitute.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa further issued a March 6 statement to parties, observer states and observer organisations, saying that “after careful consideration and with considerable regret, the UNFCCC secretariat will not hold any physical meetings in Bonn and elsewhere” from March 6 until the end of April in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and the evolving situation in Germany.

Updated information about global cases of COVID-19 can be found on the websites of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Jamaica, and the World Health Organization.

Since 2010, the Adaptation Fund, from which Jamaica has benefited, has committed about US$ 720 million for climate-change adaptation and resilience projects and programmes, including 100 concrete localised adaptation projects in the most vulnerable communities of developing countries around the world, with more than six million direct beneficiaries. It also pioneered Direct Access, empowering countries to access funding and develop projects directly through accredited national implementing entities.