Earth Today | Adaptation Fund begins work on next five-year strategy

THE ADAPTATION Fund (AF) from which climate-vulnerable developing countries, including Jamaica, have benefited is inviting input and views for its second medium-term strategy (MTS) for the years 2023-2027.

The strategy is currently in the early stages of development.

“Gathering broad consultation and input from stakeholders is aligned with AF’s inclusive and transparent approaches to its work, and will enable the fund to build on the successes of its first MTS (2018-2022) as it shapes its strategic vision for the next five years,” the fund said in a release shared on its website.

Stakeholders are invited to submit their input through an online survey by January 31, 2022.

The AF board decided at its meeting last October to begin developing the next MTS, and asked the fund’s secretariat to undertake preparatory work for it, taking into account findings and recommendations from a mid-term review of the first MTS by the fund’s independent Technical Evaluation Reference Group.

“The board requested the secretariat to solicit input through open and inclusive consultations of the fund’s various stakeholders, including the board, contributor and recipient governments, accredited implementing entities, civil society representatives, including the AF CSO Network, and other relevant stakeholders. The fund encourages input from additional important stakeholders, such as academia, climate and technical experts, youth, indigenous peoples, the private sector, and others,” the release said.

The mid-term review concluded, in part, that the first MTS has been a “good fit-for-purpose strategy, ambitious, forward-looking and responsive” to global processes and imperatives for adaptation, reflecting “good practices” while also being fully responsive to the Paris Agreement and enhancing quality and project compliance.

It also reported that progress during the first half of the MTS was “significant”, with the AF launching seven new funding windows that received significant responses and enabled it to go beyond past achievements.

Cross-cutting themes

The first MTS was launched in 2018 with a focus on the strategic pillars of ‘action’, ‘innovation’, and ‘learning and sharing’. It included cross-cutting themes such as engaging and empowering the most vulnerable groups, advancing gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, building long-term capacity for adaptation, and advancing complementarity with other climate funds.

“The Adaptation Fund’s first medium-term strategy has been a groundbreaking success in building on the fund’s strengths to continue to pioneer concrete, effective and scalable adaptation projects on the ground, as well as expanding to offer several additional funding windows through its pillars of ‘action’, ‘innovation’, and ‘learning and sharing’ to continue to innovate and swiftly evolve to meet the urgency of climate change,” said Mikko Ollikainen, head of the Adaptation Fund.

“The next MTS will be just as pivotal as we continue to adapt to countries’ needs and rising global climate challenges, and build on the fund’s strategic vision over the next several years. Gathering input from all of AF’s stakeholders is an essential and important component of this work, and is aligned with the heart of the fund’s country-led adaptation projects and programmes,” he added.

The AF has undergone significant growth during the period of the first MTS, rising to more than 125 concrete single-country and regional projects serving over 31 million beneficiaries. Additional funding windows launched included grants for project scale-up, accelerating innovation and learning in adaptation, as well as building on the fund’s pioneering Direct Access modality to strengthen country ownership in adaptation.