In the media

March 2023

March 2023

‘Pani Apa’: How coastal women are leading climate adaptation

Dhaka Tribune

Tuesday 21 March 2023

Bangladesh still finds it challenging to ensure safe and reliable drinking water for people. The problem of safe water is more acute in the coastal region. 
 
Frequent natural disasters and rising sea levels have contaminated water sources in the coastal areas and women have had to bear the brunt of it. This reality has forced them to trek miles to fetch fresh drinkable water.
 
But Rupali's ordeals have eased,thanks to the UNDP and Gender-responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA) project, jointly funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Bangladesh government.
 
Under the GCA project, some 13,308 rainwater harvesting plants have been installed in the households of the two districts. Each tank can store 2,000 litres of rainwater. 
 
For the maintenance of the water tanks, the project has also employed 101 women, including Rupali, as “Pani Apas”. They work at the community level in five upazilas of Khulna and Satkhira, providing operation and maintenance services for the GCA-installed water tanks. 

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Water Harvesting in Coastal Upazilas: From scarcity to security

The Daily Star

Tuesday 21 March 2023

Archana Rani, 36, a homemaker from coastal upazila Assasuni in Satkhira, struggled for 23 years to collect drinking water from faraway sources that were often salty and contaminated with arsenic.
 
Initially, Archana used to walk an hour to a neighbouring village to collect water, sometimes multiple trips per day. Even when fetching water from her village, she had to walk half an hour and wait in long queues, paying Tk 6 for a pitcher of water.
 
This strenuous task caused her back pain which worsened during her periods. During her pregnancy, she had to carry the water alone as her husband was often away for work.
 
Fortunately, UNDP's Gender-responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA) project, with financial assistance from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the government, helped 13,308 households in Khulna and Satkhira districts harvest rainwater using a 2,000-litre tank.

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Bolstering climate finance, UNDP signs new Accreditation Master Agreement with the Green Climate Fund

UNDP

Tuesday 21 March 2023

Representatives for UNDP and GCF have signed a new Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) launching another 5 years of partnership to deliver vital climate finance to countries in critical decade for action. The AMA is the central instrument which sets out the terms and conditions for the use of GCF resources and formalizes UNDP’s accountability in carrying out GCF-approved projects.
 
The agreement was signed by Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, UNDP’s Director and Executive Coordinator of Environmental Finance, and Carolina Fuentes, Director of GCF's Country Programming Division. UNDP signed its first AMA with the GCF in 2017 covering a five-year period of partnership from 2017-2021. This second AMA now extends UNDP’s accreditation for another five-years from 2023-2027.  

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LiDAR technology in Tuvalu (VIDEO)

Dredging Today

Monday 20 March 2023

With funding from the Green Climate Fund, the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project is working to develop innovative coastal protection solutions in one of the world’s most vulnerable small island developing states.

 Implemented by UNDP in partnership with the government, the project has worked with Fugro to leverage airborne ‘LiDAR’ (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to capture precise coastal data – supporting adaptation planning into the future.  

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Statement by the UNDP Administrator on the IPCC Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report

UNDP

Monday 20 March 2023

As extreme weather hits with increasing ferocity – including devastating droughts, floods, and heatwaves -- the fingerprint of climate change is evident in every corner of the globe. 
 
There can be no doubt that the health of people and planet hinges on decisive political action now. That is the stark message underpinning the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations (UN) body for assessing the science related to climate change, which has provided the most comprehensive assessment of climate change in the past nine years.
 
Yet the Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report is not all gloom. It outlines how feasible, effective, and low-cost options for climate mitigation and adaptation are already at the disposal of countries across the world.

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UNDP, MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT LAUNCH LEBANON’S FOURTH NATIONAL COMMUNICATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT

NNA

Sunday 19 March 2023

NNA - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and with funding by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), launched the “Fourth National Communication on Climate Change” report. It provides a comprehensive analysis of Lebanon’s greenhouse gas emissions, vulnerabilities, and climate projections, and highlights the urgent need for action to address the challenges of climate change in the country. By providing a comprehensive overview of the country's progress and challenges, the report will inform future policy decisions and actions to address the impacts of climate change.

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Embrace green tech revolution or risk falling behind, new UN report warns

UN News

Saturday 18 March 2023

Many developing countries may miss out on the benefits of the “green tech” revolution unless governments and the international community take decisive action now, the head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Thursday, releasing its latest report.

“We are at the beginning of a technological revolution based on green technologies,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said. “This new wave of technological change will have a formidable impact on the global economy.”

The 17 frontier technologies covered in UNCTAD’s Technology and Innovation Report 2023 have the potential to create market revenues of more than $9.5 trillion by 2030, about three times the size of India’s economy today.

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Youngsters unite for solution-based adaptation

The Daily Star

Monday 6 March 2023

Youths coming from different parts of the country were at the centre of a day-long expo yesterday that aimed to promote sustainable products and services as well as encourage innovations for climate-change adaptation.

They came up with various environment-friendly products and shared their views in interactive sessions on how people can work both in rural and urban areas to bring changes in others' lives to mitigate climate change impacts.

The Earth Society with support from Climate Parliament Bangladesh, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Movers, and RR-Imperial Electricals Limited organised the "Climate Expo-2023" at Gulshan Society Lake Park in the capital.

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A lack of water leaves Vietnam’s coffee farmers high and dry

Mekong Eye

Monday 6 March 2023

Droughts occurring in the past 5 years have damaged hundreds of thousands of hectares of coffee and other crops in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam. Smallholder coffee farmers in Vietnam’s Central Highlands are on the losing side of the race for water amid frequent and more severe droughts due to climate change.
 

According to the climate scenarios, although the total annual rainfall in this region is on an upward trend, the dry season will become increasingly extreme, and may be longer.  The region’s ability to retain water has also been weakened due to the ongoing deforestation, a significant part of which has been for coffee cultivation and hydroelectricity. 

“In rain-fed areas, the smallholder farmers in the Central Highland region, especially the poor and near poor, have been experiencing the increasingly acute shortage of irrigation water in the dry season,” said Dao Xuan Lai, the head of the Climate Change and Environment Division of the UNDP in Vietnam.

 “It’s the big picture that should be considered, not just export figures,” said Lai of the UNDP. “The current coffee price [currently at record levels] does not reflect the environmental and human costs.”

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Journalists get climate change training - Pakistan

The Express Tribune Pakistan

Thursday 2 March 2023

UNDP has held a three-day training for journalists on responsible reporting on climate change and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The training was organized by the project known as 'GLOF-II', a joint initiative with the Ministry of Climate Change and supported by Green Climate Fund.
 
The training briefed 27 journalists from Chitral, Swat, Upper Dir, Peshawar and Kohistan on the catastrophic impacts of climate-induced disasters such as GLOF, torrential rains, and floods.They were also briefed on how to ethically and responsibly report these disasters through various news mediums, given their implications on human lives and habitations.
 
The training sessions also included in-depth discussions on ethics of digital journalism, story-telling, multimedia reporting, narrative journalism, creative formats, hand-held shooting techniques and journalists’ safety and security. The participating journalists shared their own experiences of reporting as well, especially during the floods of 2022.

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Kiribati Tourism Authority opens Nonouti island for tourism

eturbonews

Thursday 2 March 2023

The island of Nonouti in Kiribati’s southern Gilbert group confirmed its readiness to welcome international travellers when it showcased its Community-Based Tourism (CBT) products to senior government officials and industry stakeholders. Over the last 12 months, the Kiribati Tourism Authority has made numerous trips to Nonouti to introduce the concept of Sustainable CBT to communities and local organizations on the island. These trips included scoping for potential CBT sites, soliciting community interest to participate in the initiative, and the provision of tourism support and training for these remote island communities. Supported by the project Enhancing National Food Security in the Context of Global Climate Change (known locally as 'LDCF -1') - funded by the Global Environment Facility-Least Developed Countries Fund through the UNDP and managed by the Environment and Conservation Division (ECD) under the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agriculture Development - the initiative attracted the interest of three communities, local fishing guides, and support from the Nonouti Island Council. 

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Extreme climate events prompted State to adopt long-term water management strategy : Irrigation min

Egypt Independent

Wednesday 1 March 2023

The water sector in Egypt is facing a horde of challenges, such as the adverse impacts of climate at the national and global levels, and the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events, Minister of Water of Resources and Irrigation Hany Suwailam said.

 
The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Environment, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme.

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