A working session with the objective to help Mauritius access climate finance for new projects, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, under the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), opened, on Friday morning, at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis.
The event is an initiative of the Ministry of Agro-Industry in collaboration with the CCFAH. The Hub aims to improve and strengthen the climate resilience of small and vulnerable Commonwealth countries by improving their access to climate finance. The mandate of the CCFAH emanates from the Commonwealth Heads of Government’s endorsement of November 2015 in Malta, and the Hub has been operational since 2016.
The Senior Chief Executive of the Ministry of Agro-Industry, Mr Medha Gunputh; the Head of Climate Change Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mr Unnikrishnan Nair; the Climate Change Adviser of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mr Mxolisi Sibanda; and other personalities were present.
In a statement, Mr Gunputh underlined that Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) were greatly impacted by climate change, adding that these countries had limited capacity to funds to develop resilience. “Through the CCFAH initiative,” he said, “SIDS are assisted to bid for, and gain, increased access to climate finance, thus developing resilience capacities.”
Speaking on rise in temperature and afforestation, he highlighted the need to increase forest cover to control rise in temperature. “This needs finance, and the role of the CCFAH is to help vulnerable countries access finance to implement climate change projects,” he said.
The Senior Chief Executive indicated that the process was achieved through the support and development of grant proposals and project pipelines; building human and institutional capacity; provision of technical advisory services; and sharing of experiences and expertise by Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers who were deployed in government departments.
As for Mr Nair, he dwelt on the major pillars of the Hub. They include: Concrete Adaptation and Mitigation Project Development; Climate Policy Development Support; Climate Finance Readiness; Accreditation Support; and Knowledge Management and Learning.
According to him, the priorities areas for projects for Indian Ocean States were achieving self-sufficiency in agriculture; addressing scarcity of water; and sustaining the tourism sector.
