Blog posts

Across the world, there is an evident and growing global push to promote gender equity in developmental initiatives, which is also reflected in the Adaptation Fund’s (AF’s) Gender Policy. This stance has found support in global policy forums, international funds and multilateral organisations working on climate change adaptation. Slowly but steadily, this perspective is trickling down to implementing organisations, executing entities and the community institutions that connect the global funds to these vulnerable communities. This article shares some best practices from an AF project in India and provides concrete recommendations to India's implementing entity, NABARD, to strengthen gender considerations in existing and future adaptation projects.

In Georgia, the Adaptation Fund (AF) provided a grant to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to implement a project on climate-resilient flood management. Green Alternative, a Georgian NGO and member of the AF NGO Network, talked to various stakeholders and visited the project site to assess the project. The AF intervention is generally considered a success, which resulted in the project recently being scaled up with the financial support of the Green Climate Fund. This article reviews some of the project's positive practices as well as its drawbacks and gaps to generate important lessons learnt. Those lessons learnt should be carefully taken into consideration when implementing future adaptation projects in Georgia funded by the AF or other international climate funds.

While global attention rightly focuses on how we cope with the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak at present, we should not take our eye off the ball on the issue of climate change adaptation. If anything, this current health disaster shows us how important it is to speed up support for those communities most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The Adaptation Fund Board must continue with their important work in the current challenging circumstances, and improve their mechanisms for working remotely, while at the same time ensuring transparency and the participation of stakeholders.

AF NGO Network core partner organisations from India and Georgia entered into a fruitful dialogue with the Adaptation Fund Board at the Fund's additional Board meeting on 28 June 2019. The Network provided concrete insights on challenges encountered in obtaining direct access to the Fund's resources and on the implications of implementing the Fund's country cap. On-the-ground perspectives on the role of CSOs as project implementers and gender impacts of the Fund's project in India were also shared.