UN-CBA Programme Fund

Overview

The UN Collaborative Programme on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries (UN-CBA) is a multi-donor trust fund established in August 2009 that allows donors to pool resources and provide funding to activities towards this programme.

Poor communities in developing countries are most affected by climate change because they commonly depend directly upon climate sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods. Adaptation measures are required to strengthen community-level resilience to climate change risks and to manage its negative impacts. For this reason, the COP141 also reaffirmed that special attention shall be given to the particular needs of the most vulnerable communities.

All policies and action on adaptation, to be effective, would have to be context specific. Thus, national adaptation action must be informed on what is relevant to adaptation at the community level. Following a synergistic relationship, communities with a greater diversity of options to respond to climate change risks, and supported by national and sub-national policies that promote adaptation and avoid mal-adaptation, have higher adaptive capacity and reduced vulnerability, especially when these options are integrated into a comprehensive development approach that facilitates climate-resilient development process.

Communities have often responded successfully to the challenges presented by unfavorable intra-seasonal weather impacts and baseline inter-annual climate variability. However, impacts stemming from global climate change – including the level of intensity and/or frequency of extreme events, and changes in long-term biophysical parameters – are expected to reduce their capacity to maintain their livelihoods in the face of new and emerging risks, or severe intensifications of familiar risks. There is a need for human, financial and knowledge resources to raise their capacity beyond traditional responses in conjunction with other measures that address non-climate driven threats on adaptive capacity.

The UN CBA collaborative programme aims at improving the adaptative capacity of communities and reducing vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change. UNDP, UNESCO and UNV will provide critical assurances necessary to establish a CBA programme. As neutral bodies, the partner organizations will work as honest brokers to support country-led development programmes and to facilitate the informed involvement of national stakeholders, particularly local communities. They will also use their convening power to bring together experts and scientists, as necessary, to develop the global monitoring, assessment, and mainstreaming mechanism. They recognize the importance of working together as well as with other CBA actors such as the UNFCCC, the World Bank, GEF, other UN agencies, regional development banks, bilateral donors, NGOs, and other key environment and development actors.

UNDP offers multi-functional development expertise that supports integration of climate change resilience into comprehensive development strategies for more effective implementation. UNV brings the strength of the concept of volunteerism for development through which community engagement, mobilization and capacity building could be strengthened. Through UNV, national and international UNV volunteers could be mobilized to support the above as well as the management and delivery of the programme. Through online-volunteering further resources could be mobilized to support the programme.

UNESCO brings a unique set of strength and methodologies in knowledge and learning facilitation and management, policy development, and capacity building and training that will be critical to CBA.

The in-country presence of UNDP and UNV as well as UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserve network, MAB National Committees and National Commissions represent a crucial support structure for countries and CBOs, and the organizations’ governing bodies, expert networks and convening capacity provide invaluable mechanisms for information exchange, for access to technical and scientific expertise, and for capacity strengthening.

Through this synergistic approach and complementary financial, human, knowledge and institutional resources the collaborative programme will more effectively facilitate and support community capacity and eventually national capacity to adapt to climate change.

The UN-CBA is administered by the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in accordance with its financial regulations and rules.

¹14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change