Webinar Series Explores Linkages Between Climate and Water

In July, a 3-part webinar series was held on “Coordinating, Implementing, and Financing National Climate and Water Policy Frameworks”. The series was developed by GWP and Cap-Net, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and the Water Governance Facility. The sessions highlighted climate and water linkages in national frameworks such as the National Determined Contributions (NDCs), the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and various investment mechanisms.

Part 1 of the webinar series was held on 9 July, on the topic “Supporting the NDCs under the Paris Agreement”. The speakers discussed how improved cross-sector knowledge among decision-makers contribute to better coordination.

"In many cases, coordination is a fundamental challenge for how we are going to achieve for example the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And it's not only for public administrations – on how they can coordinate horizontally across government and vertically at different scales, from the international, national and local level. But it's also a challenge for other stakeholders working on climate and water, in the public sector, civil society and research. There are not any standardized methods of what coordination means in practice. Much of the successes and failures of coordination depend on very particular country contexts. But even so, there are a lot of lessons learned that we can share when it comes to working with coordination," said Håkan Tropp, Programme Director Capacity Development at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) as he opened up the session.

Watch Part 1

Part 2 of the webinar series was on 16 July and looked at “Implementation”. The session aim was to improve understanding of the different processes and tools that can help in adaptation planning and implementation, starting from the strategic level adaptation planning to local level adaptation actions.

"When it comes to country level, how do you coordinate and organise all the development commitments that have been made to climate change at international level?” asked Kidanemariam Jembere, Technical Advisor at the GWP Southern Africa/Africa Coordination Unit, in his introduction.

Watch Part 2

The third and final part of the series on 23 July focused on “Climate Finance” and introduced the three main climate funds: The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF), with speakers looking at the mandates, investment criteria, operational modalities, funding windows and procedures for accessing resources for climate resilient water initiatives that the different funds provide.

“A lot if information, a lot of opportunities but also a lot of challenges”, said Alex Simalabwi, GWP Southern Africa Executive Secretary & GWP Global Head of Climate Resilience when he summed up the session, stressing that the aim was to introduce the finance mechanisms and that participants can follow up with the organisers after the webinar on specific questions.

Watch Part 3