Climate finance to build Nauru’s resilience against climate change is making an impact. Nauru’s Department of Climate Change and National Resilience and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme launched a two-day joint inception workshop for the Republic of Nauru National Adaptation Planning-Phase One known as the Nauru NAP. As a joint workshop it also strengthened the capacity of the National Designated Authority and Direct Accredited Entity Access Projects known as Nauru Readiness Two.
The Nauru NAP project takes a phased approach to streamline adaptation efforts and to develop a robust national adaptation planning process. The project aligns closely with Nauru’s National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) 2005 – 2025 (revised in 2019) and builds on The Republic of Nauru Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management Framework (RONAdapt). The RONAdapt will be reviewed in the development of the National Adaptation Plan.
The project will deliver on four key outcomes for adaptation planning, which include strengthening of the governance and institutional coordination in Nauru; building the evidence base to design adaptation solutions for maximum impact; catalyse private sector engagement; and increase adaptation finance. The Nauru NAP is the second project approved under SPREP’s portfolio of National Adaptation Planning projects to support member country readiness.
These two projects, Nauru NAP and Nauru Readiness Two, are financed under grants from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) valued at USD1.8 million and USD450,000 respectively.
According to Nauru’s Secretary for Climate Change – Mr Reagan Moses, in his opening remarks, “Adaptation is the primary focus of Nauru’s updated Nationally Determined Contributions submitted in 2021 which is aligned to the Climate Change Policy and the National Sustainable Development Strategy”.
Secretary Moses also highlighted that, “The use of a phased approach to access the GCF NAP funding will maximise benefits of implementation and lessons learned, whilst taking advantage of the iterative nature of adaptation planning”.
The Readiness II project builds on the Nauru GCF Readiness 1 project and will strengthen coordination through the formal establishment of the GCF steering committee, further strengthen processes related to the No-objection procedure through the formulation of the Nauru GCF NDA operational manual, and further consultation and review of the Nauru GCF country programme.
According to Secretary Moses, “The project in the long term, will strengthen capacity of key actors and stakeholders within Nauru’s national processes for developing and implementing climate change projects as well as to further support the Finance Planning and Aid Division’s efforts to gain accreditation to the Green Climate Fund. This is critical to Nauru accessing more climate finance to address its climate change priorities.”
The inception workshop was held between 1-2 August 2023, and was attended by over 20 stakeholders from various departments of the Government of Nauru, State-Owned Enterprises, civil society and the Chamber of Commerce.
Both the GCF Readiness and NAP projects, will support Nauru’s ongoing efforts to access climate finance.
The Joint-Workshop for the Republic of Nauru National Adaptation Planning-Phase One and the Strengthening the Capacity of the National Designated Authority and Direct Accredited Entity Access Projects were held in Nauru from 1 – 2 August 2023 coordinated by the Nauru Department of Climate Change and SPREP.
