Climate Change Adaptation & Disaster Risk Reduction

The health impacts of climate change are diverse and serious, including water- and vector-borne diseases, undernutrition, and the mental and physical effects of extreme weather and climate events. Extreme weather and climate events also disrupt the delivery of health care services. Ministries of Health from Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu have limited technical capacity to effectively integrate climate-related risks into policy, planning, and regulatory frames, and into interventions to control the current and project future burden of climate-sensitive health outcomes.   

In consultation with stakeholders, this GEF LDCF project was designed to increase the capacity of national health systems and institutions, and sub-level actors, to manage long-term climate-sensitive health risks, through four complementary outcomes: (1) strengthening governance of health system and institutional capacities; (2) strengthening capacities of health system institutions and personnel to manage the health risks of climate change; (3) ) improving the coverage and quality of health services addressing climate-related diseases; and (4) enhancing south-south cooperation. The regional approach will facilitate catalytic partnerships across countries, training and capacity development of climate change and health specialists in the countries, and documentation of lessons and best practices, thereby ensuring that these can be replicated and scaled up across the region. 

The project will be implemented closely between WHO and Ministries of Health in participating countries.

Starting Situation

Seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes sequester carbon at rates up to 66 times faster than terrestrial forests and store up to 5 times more carbon per hectare. Pacific Island Countries (PICs) possess significant Seagrass and Mangrove (SaM) resources, providing further ecosystem services related to shoreline protection, food security, tourism revenue and water quality. Habitat loss has been increasing rapidly, yet no adequate baselines exist to determine extent of habitats, rates of loss, or design of targeted management solutions. Methods for the assessment of carbon stocks and emissions in SaM areas exist since 2012, but have not been applied consistently to SaM areas in PICs. Policy makers and researchers note the urgent need to collect nationally relevant SaM data based on consistent methods, that ensure transparency and traceability to mitigate the loss of the world’s coastal carbon sinks and reduce the decline of coastal biodiversity.

Short Project Description

In close collaboration with national and regional partners (SPREP, SPC, USP, CSIRO, CIFOR) and the “Blue Planet” Initiative within the global Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the project will be mapping the SaM status in each of the 4 partner countries, and will assess related carbon storage capacity and ecosystem services. Resulting national inventories of SaM habitats, and associated blue carbon sinks and ecosystem service values will support government partners and policy makers in their efforts to strategically develop and implement conservation, management and rehabilitation efforts. Governments will be assisted to establish nationally appropriate incentives for sustainable management and rehabilitation efforts based on the quantification and documentation of SaM carbon stocks and the resulting emission reductions as part of NDCs and National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs).

Replication Potential

In the context of collaboration with national and regional technical agencies the project will refine and adapt remote sensing data technology for SaM mapping and carbon storage assessment methods for wide-ranging application in PICs during and beyond the project period. Project-based demonstration of effective mapping, monitoring and management regimes aims to foster and support national and regional capacity and up-scaling of these approaches in partner countries and neighbouring PICs. Collaboration and sharing of techniques and experiences with the IKI project “Blue Solutions – Implementing the CBD Strategic Plan in the field of marine and coastal biodiversity” and with the currently planned regional project on “Conservation of biodiversity, seagrass ecosystems and their services – safeguarding food security and resilience in vulnerable coastal communities in a changing climate ” will maximise replicability within the wider region and in collaboration with further global stakeholders

The project will improve climate change resilience, food security and livelihood opportunities through community led NBS in coastal communities in Vanuatu. The expected impact is improved and resilient biodiversity, coastal lands, nearshore aquatic resources and livelihoods for the local population.

Primarily, the project will benefit the governments of Vanuatu, and will directly improve the lives of 22,500 beneficiaries/5,000 households equally distributed across Vanuatu. Women and youth will be prioritized, but because the project aims to improve biodiversity, coastal lands, nearshores and aquatic resources, it will benefit the entire populations of Vanuatu.

The project starts with a participatory approach with stakeholder engagement activities for the identification of NBS and the identification and development of women and youth lead entrepreneurship. Through these approaches, participatory conservation and restoration efforts will be truly led by women and youth groups, in partnership with local authorities, through entrepreneurial activities linked to sustainable tourism and learning, as well as community-fisheries that will ensure the empowerment of women, girls and boys and ensure the long-term sustainability of the project. When planning support to strengthen community resilience, the point of departure is to recognize the ever evolving and dynamic nature of communities and the underlying vulnerabilities that challenge them. Being resilient includes being flexible in the face of changing risks, which are especially accentuated in the Pacific given their exposure to climate variability, and increasingly influencing risk patterns along the steps of a change management process for sustainable development. To enable communities to strengthen resilience through NBS, the below elements will be included in the first phase of the project: (i) a broad understanding of the climate induced risks from inaction and its consequences; (ii) a holistic approach to community resilience, as these are multidimensional systems within wider systems, meaning that coordination should be across sectors and should be operationalized across levels; (iii) responding to communities’ own understanding of the risks of inaction and the benefits of sustainable NBS which promote income generation; (iv) people centred, or listening and understanding people’s perspectives; (v) being inclusive, without discrimination.

The main objective of this project is to “improve climate change resilience, food security and livelihood opportunities through community led NBS in coastal communities in Vanuatu.”

There are 3 components:

1. Develop and implement gender sensitive national policies to support nature-based solutions and ecosystem valuation
2. Restore and protect coastal biodiversity, lands, nearshore and aquatic resources through community-led NBS and entrepreneurship, in locations with high dependence on biodiversity and ecosystem services (for resilience and livelihoods).
3. Facilitate knowledge sharing, awareness and collaborative engagement for ecosystem management between communities, islands, countries and territories.

Phase I (January to December 2024): This phase will be marked by a strong focus on achieving Outcome 1 and the activities.

Outcome I: NBS for women and youth Identified

The following activities will be technically designed and led by FAO in close collaboration with UNOPS, local and

national authorities and other relevant partners.

• Activity 1.1: Develop community profiles of the loss of biodiversity, coastal lands nearshore and aquatic resources through participatory consultations and mapping in 11 communities in Vanuatu.
• Activity 1.2: Identify the scope of biodiversity, coastal lands, nearshore and aquatic resources restoration and protection by consulting 11 communities in Vanuatu.
• Activity 1.3: Identify and prioritise traditional practices related to NBS by consulting 11 communities in Vanuatu.
• Activity 1.4: Identify at least 5,000 households from Vanuatu on the basis of their ongoing relevant activities and endorsement by local and national authorities to implement NBS entrepreneurship activities.

Phase II (January to December 2025): This phase will be marked by a strong focus on achieving result 2 and the associated activities.

Outcome II: Women and youth led NBS entrepreneurship established for about 5,000 households.           

• Activity 2.1: Select at least one demonstration site for using NBS and entrepreneurship to restore and protect biodiversity, coastal lands, nearshore and aquatic resources in consultation with local and national authorities in each of the targeted communities in Vanuatu.
• Activity 2.2: Train about 5,000 households in NBS approaches to the restoration and protection of biodiversity, coastal lands, nearshore and aquatic resources in Vanuatu. Organise two separate workshops on restoration and protection.
• Activity 2.3: Propagate, replant and regenerate about 200,000 coastal trees and shrubs in Vanuatu, including through direct seeding. This will include distribution of kits to about 5,000 households, each kit containing at least 15 tree seedlings/propagules (mainly food and culturally important trees), information and tools.
• Activity 2.4: Train about 5,000 households in NBS entrepreneurship. This will cover small business skills, agritourism, value addition, post-harvest handling of crops and fish, marketing and digitalization.

Phase III (January to December xxxxx): This phase will be marked by a strong focus on achieving Outcome 3 and 4, and the associated activities.

Outcome III: A gender sensitive policy to adequately manage coastal ecosystems is developed and implemented 

• Activity 3.1: Enhancing and strengthening of the gender sensitive National Policies for ecosystem management with practical and precise action plans, informed by the project experience of scalable solutions in Vanuatu.
• Activity 3.2: Implement the gender sensitive National Policies developed with practical and precise action plans, informed by the project experience of scalable solutions in Vanuatu

Outcome IV: Public communication campaign promoting NBS developed and implemented via knowledge sharing. 

• Activity 4.1: Drawing on the FAO SIDS Solutions Platform, which facilitates knowledge sharing, identify and develop electronic and video profiles of at least 6 scalable solutions from Vanuatu (5) for learning and learning between Project sites targeted by this project.
• Activity 4.1: Organize and facilitate at least three virtual knowledge sharing and learning workshops that draw on, and promote scalable solutions from the project experience between the targeted Project sites

: Climate change and rising sea levels and urbanization in low lying areas will increase the risk of coastal floods, erosion and salinization. Adaptation to reduce future environmental risks is inevitable, but it is unclear which coastal areas will be protected and in which regions residents will be forced to migrate. The EU-ERC COASTMOVE project aims assess how residents of low lying coastal areas can adapt and/or migrate to safer areas. For this, we aim to conduct surveys in 7 coastal areas such as Mozambique, Vietnam, Vanuatu, U.S.

The aim of the project is to apply Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) to empower targeted communities in Community Conservation Areas (CCA’s) to develop rights-based regenerative climate-smart ridge to reef landscape and food system design and management plans that support food and nutrition security and overall well-being.

Organizational Expertise Justification:

Members of the consortium have been working in Vanuatu for over 30 years. We have extensive experience working together and with the government of Vanuatu to help address the immediate and long-term needs of Vanuatu communities across the country. We also have strong experience in helping communities recover from the impacts of disaster events.

Members of this consortium were the key partners in a three year, DFAT-supported AU$2 million community-based adaptation project – Yumi stap redi long klaemet jenis – which pioneered a comprehensive approach to helping communities and local governments prepare for, and manage the immediate impacts of climate variability and extremes, while building the capacity of women, men, girls and boys to develop climate-resilient development pathways. CARE and Save the Children built on this foundation to implement a further 16-month, USAID-supported US$0.5 million community-based adaptation project, while Oxfam implemented a further three-year, Margaret A. Cargill-supported US$847,000 community-based resilience program which continued to build on existing networks and aimed to increase collaboration, knowledge sharing and support between communities, NGOs, relevant government departments and development partners around increasing community and government resilience. Our agencies have also worked in collaboration with communities from across the six provinces of Vanuatu, national civil society organisations and government to develop and implement disaster risk reduction projects, such as the DiPECHO funded “Be Better Prepared (Yumi Redi)” series of projects that focused on community-based disaster risk reduction activities and encouraged communities to form Disaster Management Committees and to support sustainable development action across a range of key sectors, including: livelihoods; water, sanitation and hygiene; education; and gender equality.

Our organizations have extensive experience developing and implementing large scale, long term projects across a range of sectors globally – including multi-year, multi-agency community-based adaptation projects across the Pacific, as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, PNG, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, valued at over AU$50 million in the past five years alone.

In July 2021, UNOSAT and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) signed a new cooperation framework to sustain and expand their longstanding efforts to strengthen capacities in the use of geospatial information technologies for improved resilience in the Asia-Pacific and Africa.
This 3 year-long project builds on previous experiences and aims to further enhance capacities by leveraging technological advances and innovation and providing integrated geospatial solutions for improved decision making in the fields of Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Resilience, Environmental Preservation & Food Security in the eight target countries: Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Lao PDR, Nigeria, and Uganda.
An innovative user-centred capacity development approach will be applied for the implementation of this project, and it is comprised of:
• Technical Training: Through the implementation of this project in each target country, UNOSAT will offer a total of three technical trainings custom-tailored to the country’s needs, with focus on climate finance, geospatial information technology, and disaster risk management. The courses will be delivered to both executive managers and technical staff, through three main approaches: face-to-face, blended learning, and e-learning solutions.
• Knowledge Platform & Community of Practice: The project team will also implement a central Knowledge Platform for the project, this will serve as an integrated learning environment for all distance-learning solutions and the main meeting point of UNOSAT’s community of practice, all aiming at sustaining the project outcomes and increasing its impact. The knowledge platform will also facilitate cross country knowledge and expertise sharing for tackling common challenges.
• Access to Climate Finance: There is a strong need for Pacific SIDS to finance their climate changes adaptations strategy; however, there is limited capacities in preparation of project proposals to climate funding. This project will integrate the Climate Finance Access Hub of the Commonwealth Secretariat (CCFAH) to use the established channels for increasing success in accessing climate funds. With the deployment of a climate finance advisor, the objective will be to facilitate improved access by partner countries to climate finance mechanisms to meet their priority needs in realizing sustainable development goals. As of April 2020, the Hub has helped countries to access USD 33,605,291 of climate finance, with USD 572,639,261 in the pipeline.
• Technical Backstopping and In-country Expert: Technical backstopping will be the backbone of the capacity development applicability and sustainability. From comprehensive risk analysis to modern web mapping systems and Operations Dashboards, various products will be developed to support informed decision making in partner countries. A minimum of eight backstopping services will be provided to each of the beneficiary countries, which can be considered as mini geospatial projects for improving or optimising existing operations. The in-country national expert will work on-site and hand-in-hand with the beneficiary ministry with technical support from the project team.
• Decision Support Applications: UNOSAT will develop in each country one smart web-based applications that can ingest data from available baseline datasets, satellite images, scientific models and generate meaningful insight to steer decision making. Complex data analytics will be carried out with automation scripts on UNOSAT cloud computing infrastructure, so analysts do not need to perform repeated analysis, saving valuable resources and time. The results will be accessible to a range of national stakeholders through dedicated decision support platforms.

The Women’s Resilience to Disasters (WRD) programme is fully funded by the Government of Australia and proposes a comprehensive package to strengthen the resilience of women and girls with the goal of ensuring that the lives and livelihoods of women and girls are resilient to disasters and threats, contributing to sustainable, secure, and thriving communities.

The WRD programme will initially be implemented in Kiribati, Vanuatu, and Fiji. Programme implementation will be driven at country level and supported by regional and global components.

The country components will provide targeted action to strengthen women’s resilience and build gender-responsive systems, advancing different elements of the WRD depending on the national context, policy priorities, existing initiatives, needs, and capacities.

At the regional level, the focus will be on knowledge management, advocacy, and gender and disability support for regional mechanisms, movements, and coalitions, including the Pacific Resilience Partnership.

The global component will advance gender-responsiveness in global DRR and climate processes, provide technical support, ensure global knowledge sharing and advocacy on women’s leadership for disaster resilience, and provide a platform for sharing good practice for gender-responsive resilience and voices from the Pacific.

The expected Outcomes for WRD are two-fold:
1) Prevention, preparedness, and recovery policy frameworks, systems, processes, and tools are gender-responsive, and implemented as a result of local women’s and girls’ advocacy; and
2) Women and girls have voice and agency to withstand multiple hazards, recover from disasters, and increase their resilience to future disasters and threats.

At the country level, the WRD Programme will work with government ministries, UN agencies and regional partners, and CSOs including women’s organisations.

The programme’s principles are localization and ownership. In line with these principles, women’s organizations and DRR and resilience stakeholders will be key partners in programme implementation and monitoring and evaluation. The programme will contribute to key international processes and frameworks, including Agenda 2030, the Sendai Framework, the WHS outcomes, and the Humanitarian- Development-Peace Nexus.

As this is a pre-concept note, it outlines the project’s components, expected outcomes, expected outputs, and related budget. The project’s goal is to assist Pacific Islands develop hydrological and water resources data, information, product services, and management practices, to strengthen resilience of Pacific peoples to floods and droughts. It builds on existing infrastructure, data and information, institutional settings, and enhancing the safety, health, food and water security, livelihood and other socio-economic well-being of Pacific peoples.

The project’s objectives are: (1) To improve hydrology infrastructure and communication particularly flood and drought data and forecasting systems to improve early warnings; (2) To improve collection, management, interoperability and use of quality assured hydrological data to support hydrology products and services; (3) To strengthen collaboration among hydro-meteorological services, government, and stakeholders to better manage water resources and flood and drought early warning systems; (4) To strengthen the capacity of National Hydrological Services (NHSs) through accredited training/qualification at national and regional levels; (5) To ensure user requirement processes and development of knowledge management products for public awareness and outreach at all levels.

The project has 4 components that will focus on achieving the following: (1) To ensure effective and coordinated hydrology policy, legislation, and regulation; (2) To upgrade and enhance hydrology and water resources operational infrastructure and monitoring systems for improved resilience to hydro-meteorological hazards and threats; (3) To strengthen communication and awareness on the applications and benefits of hydrological data and products; (4) To improve capacity and knowledge of decision-makers and users of hydrological data and products.

The project’s expected outcomes include the following: (1) Improved policies, legislations, regulations, and coordination that promote and enforce resilience measures; (2) Reduced exposure and strengthened Early Warning System (EWS) for climate related hazards and threats including at regional and national scales; (3) Strengthened awareness, ownership and responses to climate related hazards at regional and national scales; and (4) Strengthened capacity of stakeholders to address and respond to hydro-meteorological hazards and threats.

The project’s expected outcomes will focus on the following: (1) Improved integration of surface and groundwater hydrology and water resources management strategies into development plans, legal frameworks and related policies and regulations; (2) Flooding/inundation, drought and groundwater related risk and vulnerability assessments conducted and updated; (3) Targeted population provided with adequate flood and inundation risk reduction systems and information products; (4) Strengthened capabilities and systems to collect, analyse, manage and disseminate hydrological and hazard information; (5) Improved knowledge and learning products through development of knowledge materials; (6) Targeted population groups participation in adaptation and risk reduction awareness activities related to hydrology and water resources; and (7) Improved capacity for NHSs staff through recognised trainings and mentorships; (8) Enhances capacity for preparedness and responses at national level through trainings and consultations.

The Adaptation Fund (AF) will provide resources to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the Implementing Entity to mobilise the project. The Executing Agencies, SPREP, SPC and WMO, will implement specific project components and activities. The project will also establish a Project Steering Committee (PSC) to oversee the project’s implementation.

The project consists of 5MWp solar photovoltaic (PV) plants with a 11.5 MW/6.75 MWh centralised battery energy storage system (BESS) with grid forming inverters (GIF) at Kawene, Undine Bay, and Bouffa in UNELCO’s Port Vila, Efate concession area grid which serves approximately 30% of Vanuatu’s population. The BESS will enhance climate resilience and stabilise grid integration of the PV plants. The project will also improve the reliability of the electricity supply to the water pumping station of Port Vila and thereby enhance the resilience of the water supply system. The project will contribute to Vanuatu’s NDC target by doubling the current amount of grid integration of renewable energy and decreasing diesel fuel consumption by up to 32%.