Projects of innovation should be implemented through collective effort in the countries of South Asia, including in Nepal, to cope with the rapid increase in challenges resulting from climate change.
This was highlighted by the speakers of the 'Innovations for Climate Adaptation and Resilience in South Asia - Needs Assessment Consultation in Nepal', programme organised by Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) here recently.
The speakers stressed that such innovations should be grounded at the local, national and regional level.
It was also shared on the occasion that during the past 30 years, climate induced disasters have affected 1.68 billion people and caused over US$ 127 billions in economic losses in South Asia.
On the occasion, ADPC Deputy Executive Director Aslam Perwaiz said a five-year model project (pilot interventions) on climate adaptation and resilience has been executed in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan with the support of the World Bank.
He shared that seven key sectors have been selected for the pilot interventions. These sectors include climate-smart agriculture, integrated water resources management, resilient infrastructure (transport), finance, and policy and planning.
According to the ADPC deputy executive director, the experience of Nepal on climate adaptation and resilience would be useful for the South Asia itself.
Chief Executive Officer of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), Anil Pokhrel said it was necessary to implement the projects of innovations by building up the capacity of all the local levels and private sectors in Nepal.
Care-ADPC Nepal's Country Project Lead Purna Chandra Lal Rajbhandari and Avani Mani Dixit, DRM Specialist, World Bank Nepal, said the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CARE) for South Asia project is supporting the region in building resilience to climate change by improving the availability of regional data and knowledge, developing guidelines, tools and capacities, and promoting climate resilient decisions, policies and investments across key sectors.
The needs assessment consultation programme also came up with suggestions for promoting the knowledge, skills and experiences on climate adaptation that are in practice among the various communities and regions at the local level, for developing the capacity of the women and backward communities and for increasing the participation of the private sector, while formulating projects of innovation.
The expected outcomes of the CARE project are : improved access to regional climate information and analytics for climate-informed decision-making in select sectors; national-level planning and decision-making tools are better climate risk informed in select sectors; regional climate resilience guidelines for select sectors incorporated into national standards; sectoral investments supported to include climate risks and resilient design in select sectors and institutional capacities within select sectors strengthened to undertake climate informed policies and planning.
