An inception workshop was held under the consultancy Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Support, to enhance the Maldives’ Transparency Framework for tracking adaptation actions and resilience building. The workshop was attended by stakeholders from various public organizations, namely, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Maldives Meteorological Services (MMS), Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Welfare and the Ministry of Cities, Local Government and Public Works. The workshop was organized under the “Capacity Building for Improved Transparency of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Actions in the Maldives” (CBIT Maldives) Project.

The workshop commenced with welcome remarks from the Director of the Climate Change Department, Mr. Ahmed Waheed, setting the stage for a comprehensive discussion on the subject. Mr. Hussein Zahir, Team Leader for the consultancy, presented an overview of the background information on National Climate Change Reporting and key tasks for the consultancy. Mr. Ibrahim Shabau, Agriculture and Food Security Expert, discussed the link between climate change, agricultural activities and food security. A group discussion was also held, allowing participants from various sectors to deliberate on the multifaceted aspects of climate change and adaptation actions.

The objective of this consultancy is to provide climate risk assessment and adaptation support to enhance the Maldives’ Transparency Framework for tracking adaptation actions and resilience building. The consultancy will contribute to strengthen the existing monitoring system, facilitate data standardization, and develop operational indicators for effective climate risk assessment and adaptation planning.

 

The scope of the assignment includes;

1. Conduct out a feasibility study for the standardization of climate risk, vulnerability and adaptation databases.
2. Amend existing tools and methodologies and develop templates for tracking adaptation on key vulnerable area, Early Warning and Systematic Observation identified in the Maldives Updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
3. Pilot the improved tools and methodologies developed in Five (5) selected islands and capacity building of the local council’s staff on collection of information on weather related events including rapid and slow onset events. The focus will be mainly on agriculture sector.
   1. Selected five (5) islands;
      1. Feevah
      2. Thoddoo
      3. Kandoodhoo
      4. Fiyoari
      5. Fuvahmulah
   2. Develop a full set of operational climate risk, vulnerability, or adaptive capacity indicators for agriculture sector.

By aligning the Maldives’ transparency efforts in line with the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement, the CBIT Maldives project seeks to strengthen long-term institutional arrangements, systemize data collection and processing, and develop indicators and methodologies. Additionally, the project aims to improve overall data quality and management procedures for GHG inventories, mitigation and adaptation actions tracking, and climate finance, ensuring regular and transparent reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. These efforts will inform national decision-making processes and contribute to the effective management of climate change challenges. The CBIT Maldives project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by the Ministry, with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment).