WITH the Government of Jamaica/Adaptation Fund Programme now over, the partners were on a celebratory high during the closing out ceremony on Tuesday as they pointed to the significant successes of the initiative within their sectors.

Delivered through the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), the Adaptation Fund Programme was launched in November 2012 with financing of US$10 million.

It consisted of three interrelated projects which had the objective of building climate resilience in Jamaica.

Component one focused on increasing climate resilience of the coastline along the north-eastern end of Jamaica, while component two dealt with improving water and land management in select rural farming communities.

The third component supported the first two projects through building local and national capacity at the community and institutional levels.

Entities which worked with the PIOJ included the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), the National Works Agency, Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), the Forestry Department, and the Social Development Commission.

Delivering the keynote address at the closing out ceremony, Jamaica’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Professor Dale Webber declared the initiative a model for resilience-building in small island developing states (SIDS).

According to Webber, while the project was driven by science, its success lay in its visible practical outcomes.

“What has been achieved here is not just theoretical…what happened here was practical. It was visible, and it continues to be impactful. You have strengthened and stabilised coastlines, protecting critical infrastructure — including health facilities — as well as community assets,” said Webber.

“You have supported fisheries and coastal livelihoods, helping communities adapt to changing marine ecosystems, especially with fishermen and the pelagics. You have advanced reforestation and improved land management practices, reducing soil erosion and improving watershed stability,” added Webber who was representing portfolio minister Matthew Samuda.

Webber praised the programme’s achievements, which included capacity-building efforts such as training shelter managers and deploying the Climate Risk Atlas to enable evidence-based, risk-informed planning at the local level.

He also highlighted the project’s focus on gender, which ensured that the resilience-building strategies were inclusive and equitable.

“The Adaptation Fund has been a critical partner in Jamaica and its climate journey. It has enabled us to pilot integrated, community-based, adaptation solutions — strengthening national institutions, building technical capacity, and developing a pipeline of scalable, bankable adaptation investments,” Webber said as he issued a call to international partners for faster processing and greater access to climate finance.

“Jamaica has demonstrated that we can deliver on results. We have institutions, we have the capacity, we have the vision, and now we have the experience. We are not short on ambition but we are often limited by funding,” Webber added.

In the meantime, private forestry programme coordinator at the Forestry Department Shawnette Russell-Clennon said through the funding of seedlings to farmers the country has been able to strongly rebound following the devastation of Hurricane Melissa which made land fall on October 25, 2025.

“As a result of this partnership with PIOJ you find that, post-Hurricane Melissa, our private planters in the western side of Jamaica would have benefited from an injection of fruit seedlings like timber species, and also ornamentals.

“So our private planters, they are so appreciative of this support that they came on board in their worst and most vulnerable state. The spaces were so denuded, and [so] they have gotten some fruit seedlings, some timber species, and some ornamentals to replenish these green spaces,” said Russel-Clennon.

Data provided by the PIOJ highlighted that through the programme, more than 20,000 fruit and lumber trees were planted, allowing reforestation to occur even as the island continues to face harsh weather events more frequently in recent years.

For Ricardo Ramdeen, public relations officer of the St Mary’s Fisherman Group, the programme significantly impacted fisherfolk from the area, providing them with training and climate-resilient equipment to brave the island’s turbulent weather patterns.

“I speak for the fishermen of Annotto Bay, and we have tremendously benefited in terms of training. We got an upgrade for our boats, which badly needed to be upgraded. [As for] equipment, we have been provided a ramp where we can push our boat ashore if there is extreme weather conditions, and I’m here today to say thank you,” said Ramdeen.

Zonal director at RADA Jasmine Hyde, who had responsibility for St Ann and St Mary, shared that farmers benefited from skills training.

“Through RADA they were provided with technical advice and training through our farmer peer schools, and I can tell you those farmers had learned so much. They learned from each other [and] they learned from the facilitators. It was some tedious sessions but they stuck it out. Farmers in all the parishes, they came out to the sessions and they participated fully, and whatever they learned at these sessions they practised them on their farms,” said Hyde.

She pointed out that the programme also yielded higher productivity among farmers, as well as improved irrigation systems and better management of farm ground to minimise landslides.

“Farmers were able to manage their lands better, they were able to manage water on their properties better. And one of the main impacts, especially in the two parishes that I worked in at the time, was that farmers were able to access irrigation water,” added Hyde.