Climate change has emerged as one of the most important challenges that the humanity faces in the 21st century, the impacts of which are being felt everywhere with very real and direct consequences on people’s lives, ranging from natural disasters to significant economic losses and public health problems.

Accelerating climate action requires also adaptation to new realities for which a strong global commitment is needed.

In this context, the Republic of Armenia participated in the “Regional Workshop on Adaptation Planning and Mainstreaming of Climate Risks into National and Sectoral Planning Processes”, in the frames of EU4Climate project, held at Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, from 30 October to 01 November 2019.

The EU4Climate project funded by the European Union and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation in line with the Paris Agreement in Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The Adaptation Component of the Project supports the countries in adaptation planning, with a special focus on development and adoption of both national and sectoral adaptation plans.

Within the Project technical assistance, as well as capacity building opportunities in doing needs assessment, defining priority sectors for the adaptation planning, and developing conceptual frameworks for the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) will be provided, including for those countries which NAP process is funded by other organizations, as the Green Climate Fund.  

The overarching objective of this three-day workshop was to support policy makers and technical officials from EaP countries to address the adverse impacts of climate change through medium and long-term integrated and evidence-based NAPs and mainstreaming of climate risks into sectoral plannings, as well as strengthening countries’ technical efforts towards formulating their national plans.

At the beginning the participants were sensitized to the idea of medium-to long-term climate adaptation planning, mainstreaming and the NAP process in general.

The Armenian delegation attending to the workshop composed of representatives from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Economy (agricultural sector), Hydrometeorological Service and UNDP project.

Together with government practitioners and representatives from EaP countries, policy decision makers and international experts the members of Armenian delegation involved in active experience sharing and discussions on the challenges in formulating and implementing adaptation plans. The issues of developing proposals to mobilize resources for the formulation of NAPs were also discussed.

Besides, an effective dialogue evolved between the representatives of countries that are at an early stage of national and sectoral adaptation planning processes and those who have already developed their climate-related plans to support adoption process. Representatives from other countries like Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Turkey, Kosovo were also attending the workshop to get a hands-on experience towards NAP planning and implementation.

Overall, the workshop facilitated a regional exchange, providing guidance, highlighting emerging best practices and case studies, and presenting existing tools that policymakers and technical government officials can use to follow the consequent steps for formulating NAPs, planning adaptation budgetary, identifying and addressing capacity gaps, as well as assessing the country specific needs.