The Environment Ministry organised the fourth workshop in the series of regional consultation workshops to support State governments to proactively pursue climate change adaptation, mitigation and building their capacity for accessing climate change finance from domestic and international sources. The workshop was organised for the eight States/Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The two-day workshop was organized in Lucknow on June 27-28, 2016, in collaboration with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
The workshop has been organised with a view to provide hands-on training to State government officials for formulating and submitting proposals for accessing climate change finance under the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Adaptation Fund Board (AFB). In addition to providing an overview of the national policy framework, the workshop gave a platform to deliberate upon and identify avenues for mainstreaming climate change concerns into development planning at the State level and explore possibilities of sharing budgetary resources to support adaptation and mitigation activities. It enabled cross-learning between States and sectors, which is expected to facilitate better quality projects.
Inaugurating the workshop, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Ajay Narayan Jha, highlighted that States are important partners for implementing the climate change vision of the country and have to play a proactive role in project development and implementation. He further emphasized that climate change issues cannot be seen in isolation and require effective stakeholder engagement to pursue its goals and support the long term implementation of climate change policies. The discussions were guided by Joint Secretary, MoEF&CC Shri Ravi S. Prasad, and Chief General Manager, NABARD, Shri Naresh Gupta. Senior officials from State governments, bankers, Institute of Rural Development and NABARD participated in the workshop.
Till date, twelve projects submitted by State governments have been approved under NAFCC at a total cost of Rs. 235.17 crore. At the end of the workshop, the participants acquired the knowledge and expertise for preparing good quality adaptation and mitigation projects for NAFCC and GCF for their respective States to be submitted by July 15, 2016. Consultative workshops have earlier been organized in Assam, Patna and Bengaluru covering North-Eastern, Eastern and Southern States.
