Regional Project Exceeds Expected Climate Action Results

September 5, 2019

J-CCCP Technical Specialist assesses project results

With a few months of project implementation remaining, the Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership (J-CCCP) is already realising the attainment and surpassing of anticipated project results. J-CCCP, launched in 2016, partnered with governments, civil-society organisations, regional agencies and communities across eight Caribbean countries to achieve these results, with generous funding from the Government of Japan.

Policy Support
The project supported the development of two key policy documents – National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) – in five and seven beneficiary countries, respectively. The NAP process was created by the United Nations as an opportunity for countries to plan for sustainable development in the face of climate stress by identifying medium and long term adaptation needs and, to develop and implement strategies and programmes to address those needs. While some countries developed overarching NAP documents, focusing on the reform of a variety of sectors, others honed in on specific sectors such as agriculture and water resources.

NAMAs, on the other hand, focus on mitigation – reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. NAMA documents consider that countries have common but, different responsibilities and capabilities and outline actions and policies countries have committed to. The development of some NAMAs also included calculating the standard baseline emissions for priority sectors and in some cases, introduced key stakeholders to models that may be used for the calculation of emissions when data gaps exists. The project supported the advancement of national efforts in calculating these baselines in five countries and therefore allowed the determination of the impact of various interventions on the national GHG emission baseline and progress toward outlined targets. These calculations allowed for more robust NAMAs within priority sectors such as transport and water. Countries were then provided with the opportunity to present concepts, based on their NAMAs, to donor agencies and development partners, with several reporting positive outcomes.

Community-based Interventions
The Project implemented more than thirty-five community-based projects focusing on water resources management, climate-smart agriculture, climate-resilient infrastructure and renewable energy and energy efficiency. These projects facilitated the realisation of over 3,000 persons with improved access to water, more than 40 hectares of farmland now with adaptive and improved grazing techniques and, 100,000 persons who have gained direct benefits from improved, climate-resilient irrigation systems. With drought severely affecting Caribbean countries, access to water and the streamlining of climate-smart agricultural practices for food security is now critical.

Cooperation, Technology Transfer & Behavioural Impact
One of J-CCCP’s key results was in the area of partnership development and behavioural impact. Across thirty-seven communities, more than three thousand, five hundred persons have been reached via targeted communication campaigns on climate change. Applying an evidence-based approach, J-CCCP worked with beneficiary governments to collect and interpret data, which was then used as a basis for the development of campaigns. J-CCCP also transferred knowledge to more than 1,200 youth and transferred agriculture related knowledge and technologies from Japan to approximately 150 agricultural practitioners.

As the J-CCCP commences its wrap-up activities and closes out the project, it is expected that more than 200,000 persons will have benefitted both directly and indirectly from the project activities highlighted. With a sustainability plan that includes room for scalability and identifies funds for such in some cases, it is expected that these climate change adaptation and mitigation benefits will continue to accrue, even after the project’s close out.