Adriana
Bombardone
I
have recently returned from a mission to Panama for the ‘Start-up and
Implementation Support Workshop’ for the GEF-funded Sustainable
Development and Climate Change Mitigation Project in the province of Veraguas. The main
objective of this project is to promote sustainable
rural development and environmental management in the Province of Veraguas,
contributing to both poverty reduction and the improvement and conservation of
natural resources (soil, water and biodiversity).
Furthermore, it
will contribute to national efforts in mitigating
climate change, through a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and
through an increase in carbon sequestration.
The objective
of the workshop was to discuss the scope, expectations and implementation
arrangements of the project.
Figure 1-
Area of intervention
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There
were themed sessions held, aimed at contributing to the strategic,
administrative, financial and operational performance of the project, in
collaboration with the major stakeholders involved in the project. These
included local communities, the National
Environment Authority (ANAM)- implementing Agency, the Ministry of Agriculture
(MIDA), the Agricultural Research Institute (IDIAP) and also the newly
recruited project coordinator and administrative assistant.
In order to
share experiences between IFAD-supported projects, national staff from the
DECOFOS
project in Mexico participated in the workshop. This project is implemented by
the National Forestry Commission of Mexico (CONAFOR) and it has also GEF
co-financing.
Figure 2-
Participatory discussions - What are the main challenges of the changes in
climate pattern? - Adriana Bombardone
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The
mitigation expert from the CONAFOR - Mexico team explained what climate change
is and the impact it would have on the production. In his explanation, he
compared the world to a child ‘When a child has a temperature rise of a few
degrees, they get sick, and the temperature has to come back down for them to
recover. Climate change is like that for the world, and the temperature is
continuing to rise, and the earth is getting more sick’. With this very simple
yet clear explanation, the mitigation expert from CONAFOR managed to grasp the
attention of the local communities and awoke their interest in what, so far,
had seemed to them as a very vague and distant topic.
Figure 3-
Participants discussing about effects of climate change - Adriana
Bombardone
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Implementing
activities, coordinating different actors and Institutions is always
challenging: during the workshop different approaches and methodologies were
discussed in order to find the most successful one. Participants expressed
their points of view about the effects of climate change and the benefits to
the environment of sustainable farming.
In a short
time, the main stakeholders of the workshop managed to reach an agreement on
the next steps leading to the first disbursement of funds. The ANAM committed
to provide a schedule of activities to be implemented in the short and long
term.
The fruitful
brainstorming session held with the local communities as well as the experience
shared by the Mexico team provided useful insights for the road ahead. A
motivating talk by the project staff of a similar project has proven positive
and is surely an experience to be repeated.
