The Women's Environment & Development Organisation (WEDO) is inviting you to a webinar to explore a new brief, which WEDO will launch that day: Engaging with the Adaptation Fund: First Steps for Women’s Organizations.

Climate finance should flow to women’s organizations, gender-related groups, and feminist organizations working at the intersection of gender equality and climate change. Building on WEDO's work with Prospera, the International Network of Women’s Funds, last year, on engagement across the four primary climate funds, WEDO has been working on a new brief to update the information and opportunities for engaging with the Adaptation Fund.

In addition to presenting these pathways, the webinar will feature the Adaptation Fund's Young Hee Lee, Governance Specialist, and Cristina Dengel, Knowledge Management Officer, to share information on how the Fund works and ways to better understand the Fund, as well as answer your questions.

Cette publication formule un certain nombre de recommandations pour renforcer l'engagement et la participation de la société civile afin d'améliorer la prise de décision du Conseil d´Administration du Fonds d'Adaptation (FA). Les recommandations de ce document s'appuient également sur l'expérience des politiques et pratiques de participation de la société civile d'autres fonds pour le climat afin de garantir que le FA s'inspire des normes internationales les plus élevées tout en reconnaissant qu'il n'existe pas de modèle unique pour tous les fonds pour le climat.

This publication articulates a number of recommendations for further strengthening civil society engagement and participation to enhance decision-making of the Adaptation Fund (AF) Board. The recommendations in this paper also draw on the experiences of civil society participation policies and practices of other climate funds to ensure that the AF is informed by the highest internationally accepted standards, while at the same time acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all model for all climate funds. The three main needs identified that are crucial for further strengthening civil society engagement in the AF are: 1. The introduction of active CSO observers; 2. Amendments to the AF's Open Information Policy; and 3. Adequate resourcing of the AF Secretariat to ensure transparency and effective CSO engagement.

The side-event promotes solutions for effectively channelling international adaptation finance to local stakeholders and for ensuring that those most vulnerable benefit from international adaptation finance flows. The event showcases best practice initiatives that effectively channel adaptation finance to the local level. 

The event takes place on Friday 6th December 16:45 - 18:15 in room 1 at the COP25 venue in Madrid.

Speakers: Adaptation Fund (AF) Secretariat, CSO representatives from the AF NGO Network, Adelphi, NABARD - AF National Implementing Entity in India.

South Africa’s Community Adaptation Small Grants Facility Project, funded under the Adaptation Fund, is drawing to a close, and has surfaced valuable lessons about implementing “enhanced direct access” mechanisms and making adaptation funding available at the local level. Project participants, including the 12 small grant recipients, met recently at an inter-district learning event to share their experiences.