JAMAICA is, within the next three or so weeks, to learn whether the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) will be accredited as a national implementing entity (NIE), thus paving the way for the island to access the Adaptation Fund.

“Very soon, hopefully, we should have very good news. We are really hopeful that the NIE will be accredited at the next board meeting (of the Adaptation Fund Board), which is (scheduled for) the middle of September — September 15 to 17 in Bonn, Germany,” Jeffrey Spooner, the Group of Latin America and Caribbean Countries representative on the Adaptation Fund Board, told Environment Watch.

His comments come in the wake of a recent visit from representatives of the Adaptation Fund Board to look over the operations of the PIOJ.

“There were two members — one from accreditation panel and one from the secretariat. I don’t know exactly what they did, but my understanding is that their mission was for the accreditation panel to be satisfied that the proposed NIE satisfies the fiduciary standards as required by the board,” noted Spooner.

Jamaica earlier this year submitted the relevant documents for the PIOJ to be considered an NIE through which counties are required to submit proposals for adaptation projects and/or programmes for consideration.

According to the operational guidelines of the Adaptation Fund Board, the NIE has “full responsibility for the overall management of the projects and programmes financed by the Adaptation Fund and will bear all financial monitoring and reporting responsibilities”.

To qualify as an NIE, the organisation must demonstrate:

* financial integrity and management;

* institutional capacity; and

* transparency and self-investigative powers.

Jamaica’s decision to submit the documents for the PIOJ as an accredited NIE came in the wake of the call for proposals for projects and/or programmes by the Adaptation Fund Board, following two years of work to get the fund fully operational.

“It means that we would be in a position, through our NIE, to access grant funding for adaptation,” noted Spooner in anticipation of the PIOJ becoming an accredited NIE.

Adaptation is critical for developing countries, such as Jamaica and others in the Caribbean, if they are to stave off the ill-effects of climate change to which they are the most vulnerable.

Climate change threatens not only warmer global temperatures, but also increased sea levels in addition to more extreme weather events, notably droughts and hurricanes.

Spooner said that already Jamaica is looking at projects to be developed for consideration by the Adaptation Fund Board.

“As vice-chair of the thematic working group on disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change, the Vision 2030 group, we have been trying to see how best we can try to identify projects that might be able to be funded,” he said.

As yet none have been identified.

However, projects and/or programmes submitted for approval will be assessed on the basis of how they assist countries to address the adverse effects of climate change, as well as on the basis of how cost-effective they are. A determination will also have to be made as to whether they provide social, economic and environmental benefits, with particular reference to the most vulnerable communities, and whether they are a duplication of existing projects and/or programmes.

The Adaptation Fund, valued at around US$60 million up to a few months ago, is a provision under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It gets its financing from two per cent of the value of the carbon credits earned from projects undertaken under the Clean Development Mechanism — another of the features of the Kyoto Protocol — as well as from other sources. Most recently, the Spanish Government donated euro45 million to the fund, a move praised by developing countries, including Jamaica.