Adaptation to climate change in the countries of - Mekong River ...

Adaptation to climate change in the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin
8.3 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
As part of the regional Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI) of UNDP and UNEP,
activities relating to the mainstreaming of climate change issues are proposed or being carried
out. A regional workshop has been held on ‘Economic development, poverty reduction and
environment and climate change: Environmental economics for policy makers’ and climate
change adaptation aspects are considered a specific issue at the PEI meetings. Activities within
both Cambodia and Lao PDR are in the preparatory phase.
Activities in Cambodia are likely to include: (i) integration of climate into national plans,
sectoral strategies and the decentralization processes; (ii) linking climate change with disaster
risk reduction; (iii) up-scaling pilots based on GEF-SGP; and (iv) linking up with donor
coordination mechanisms. Activities in Lao PDR are likely to include: (i) building capacity of
PEI champions and implementing partners including the Ministry of Planning and Investment,
National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication and the UNDP-UNEP
Joint Environment Unit; (ii) including environment into the 7 th National Strategy for Economic
Development and Planning; and (iii) activities in two pilot provinces.
8.4 Asian Development Bank (ADB)
The GMS Core Environment Program (CEP) supported through ADB’s Regional Technical
Assistance (RETA) 6289, was launched in 2006. Phase 1 of the CEP was from 2006 to 2008
and supplementary activities are being carried out from 2009 to 2011. The CEP has five
programme components. Under the CEP’s Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Initiative (BCI)
seven climate change activities are proposed focusing particularly on infrastructure aspects of
climate change and adaptation, but also including aspects on disaster preparedness capacity for
communities in the BCIs:
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• Research into adaptation of rice yield varieties in dry (upland) and wet rice (lowland)
areas within BCI pilot sites;
• Carbon neutral transport corridors: greening and carbon sequestration;
• Reduction of emissions in transport sector (freight) along economic corridors through
policy framework and incentives;
• Promotion of ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’ or REDD
proposals through Carbon Funding Facilities and integration of BCI pilot sites into
national benchmarking and capacity building for REDD;
• Assessment of selected infrastructure adaptation/relocation costs;