Launch of the Action Planning and Financing Framework Exercise

CCFF Worshop On the 11^th of July 2013 in Phnom Penh, over 90 participants from key line ministries and development partners met to discuss the operationalization of the climate change strategic plans at the “inception workshop for the development of a National Climate Change Financing Framework and Climate Change Action Plans in Priority Ministries”.

The Cambodia Climate Change strategic Plan was developed over a period of one year, in a highly participative process involving the Government agencies of the National Climate Change Committee and key external partners. With support from the Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Environment, nine line ministries have finished their sectoral climate change strategic plans and the national strategic plan has been submitted for approval. These line ministries have set climate change as one the priority issue in their strategic planning process.

The Royal Government of Cambodia has recognized climate change as one of the key issues to be addressed for the development of the country and has become one of the cross-cutting issues for the new National Strategic Development Plan 2014-2018, said H.E Thuk KroeunVutha, Secretary of State of Ministry of Environment in the workshop.

The next step to be focused on is to operationalize the climate change strategic plans in the concerned ministries. To achieve this, two important activities will be carried out: (1) the development of the ministerial action plans that will include information on how climate change will be mainstreamed in the ministries’ planning, financing and implementation procedures and (2) the development of a national Climate Change Financing Framework which is very much linked to the action plans and will provide information on financing scenarios, costing, expected benefits and recommendations on financing and coordination mechanisms.

“We will need financing mechanisms which allow us to bring together regular development funding and climate change financing, in an integrated response” said H.E. Nut Chansokha, Under-secreatray of State of the Ministry of Planning in the workshop. Cambodia is developing fast, so we need to mainstream climate change not only in our partnerships with donors, but also and most importantly in our internal planning and budgeting practices, he continued.

The EU has also shown their support to the development of Climate Change Financing Framework. “The EU encourages and strongly supports dialogues at national level to facilitate the smart use of the funds made available. In view of this we are very satisfied with Cambodia’s strategic approach of mainstreaming climate change into programmatic development planning at all levels rather than going for individual projects”, addressed by H.E. Jean-François Cautain, Ambassador of EU delegation to Cambodia in the inception workshop.

Currently, the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance is engaging a range of international and national experts to support the development of financing framework and action plans to address climate change by closely work with all line ministries. This workshop initiates a participative design process that will span over the next three-months.

This approach is innovative in many terms: it brings a strong improvement to previously used models (such as the National Adaptation Plans of Action) to engage key stakeholders to tackle climate change. In particular, it links ministerial action plans with an analysis of likely resourcing scenarios, and includes tools for the prioritization of actions and reallocation of resources based on evolving resources.

With the combination of the most recent knowledge on climate change and the new tools being put in place by the CCCA with the National Climate Change Committee, Cambodia will be among the first developing countries to systematicallyanalyse its existing and future investments, and integrate climate change analysis in the design of its investment strategy.

In the long term, it is expected that climate change will be fully mainstreamed and integrated in all relevant sectors of development.

*** You can download the speeches and presentation files as in the PDF format here.

1. Speeches:

- CCFF Workshop EU Ambassador Speech;

- CCFF workshop H.E. Thuk Kroeunvutha speech_En-final;

- CCFF workshop H.E. Thuk Kroeunvutha speech_kh-final;

- CCFF Worshop H.E Nuth Chansokha Speech_En-final; &

- CCFF Worshop H.E Nuth Chansokha Speech_kh-final.

2. Presentation:

- Climate Change Financing Framework_what is it;

- Guide for the Dev of CC Action Plans_En;

- Guide for the Dev of CC Action Plans_Kh;