The Global Commission for Adaptation (GCA)’s “Call to Action” report released on September 19, 2019 is a highly anticipated urgent plea for investment and increased effort for adaptation ahead of the UN Climate week and the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)  Conference of Parties in Chile (COP25) in December. It is a tour de force from some of the leading voices in international development, nation states, civil society groups and the private sector calling for a revolution in understanding, planning and financing adaptation efforts.

At Winrock International, the Private Investment in Enhanced Resilience (PIER) program has been eagerly awaiting the report, foreseeing its potential to reinforce and underline the project’s efforts. PIER is Winrock International’s U.S. State Department-funded flagship program on climate resilience, working across eight countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to help demonstrate the feasibility of, and pathways for, mobilizing private investments in resilience. The backbone of the PIER program is its theory of change for mobilizing private investments in resilience needed to meet the climate adaptation goals that are also incisively described in the GCA report.

Having spent around 18 months looking for fertile ground to demonstrate our theory of change in practice, we are now doggedly pursuing several opportunities in Vietnam, Peru, Ghana and Indonesia. We are also working on two initiatives that will cut across geographic boundaries and provide a template for mobilizing large-scale private sector investments globally.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the private sector-oriented interventions that the PIER team has been pursuing line up with the framework for adaptation planning and implementation articulated in the GCA report. All seven of the key systems that the GCA report draws attention to and urges accelerated action on are addressed though PIER’s efforts, as well as nearly all the “action tracks” it outlines for the next 15 months, as shown in the table below.

Over the rest of the PIER Project’s lifetime through 2020, staff will continue to track and connect with other initiatives related to adaptation/resilience at global, regional and local levels, and especially those that relate to mobilizing private investment. As both the public and private sector continue (or begin, in some cases) to develop adaptation/resilience-related programing, the PIER program aims to position itself among other forward-looking incubators of pilot initiatives as a valuable source of examples, lessons and guidance. By piloting and implementing fresh tools and approaches from its diverse activities to boost finance for adaptation and resilience, and then disseminating outcomes with the private sector and adaptation community, the PIER program is doing its part to pave the way to help meet the ambitious goals espoused in the GCA report.

For those interested in knowing more about each of the above-mentioned projects or more about Winrock’s thought leadership in the adaptation/resilience field, please reach out to Anmol Vanamali (Anmol.vanamali@winrock.org) or Michael Cote (Michael.cote@winrock.org).

The wheels are spinning, but the vehicle is going nowhere. It’s rainy season in Vietnam, and dirt roads have become rivers of mud. It’s not uncommon for a vehicle to become mired in the muck. But in this case, the vehicle holds much-needed funds that won’t be delivered to community-based forest owners unless a team of determined forest fund staff rescues it. It’s a sticky situation — but one that may not happen much longer.

Changes in Vietnam’s innovative Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) system, implemented by Winrock’s Vietnam Forests and Deltas project, will soon make life much easier for the community-based forest owners who are paid through this program.

Most PFES payments originate from hydroelectric plants and other downstream users of environmental services who need to know they will have a steady stream of low-silt water at their disposal. The Government of Vietnam determined that it’s a better investment to pay for good forest cover proactively rather than dredging reservoirs on a regular basis if the forest is not maintained.

Users pay mandated fees to the Vietnam Forest Fund (VNFF), which distributes these funds to the provincial authorities for further distribution to community-based forest owners. However, to actually get these funds into the hands of people caring for the forests has been a real hardship. Often, members of the provincial-level staff have to ferry bags of cash to remote mountain communities on dirt roads — a costly and inefficient method that is dangerous for everyone involved,  especially during the rainy season.

Winrock provides training on e-payments, a new way of doing business for the community.

Winrock has been working with VNFF and their provincial funds to find an effective way to transfer this money electronically. Through several pilot initiatives in Lam Dong and Son La provinces, the Vietnam Forests and Deltas project has helped make this arduous task as simple as a few mouse clicks. This means that Nguyen Thanh Long, deputy head of Cat Tien National Park Forest Protection Department in Lam Dong province, can now pull up the data for those requiring payment and transfer funds through an e-payment system managed by Viettel, a Vietnamese telecom provider.

“As Forest Protection Department Fund officers, we are also happy, as we are no longer worried about losing money or taking months to complete the payment process,” Long says.

E-payments are a new way of doing business for members of the community. Most have traditionally engaged in cash transactions, so Winrock’s training on how to do e-payments is crucial. Once over the learning curve, though, people are certainly seeing the benefits of quicker transactions, more transparency in the transfers (both with the government and within the household), and additional access to financial services.

A training session on e-payments.

“Local people were very happy when receiving the payment through Viettel Pay before Tet holiday because they received the money much more quickly and were ready for Tet,” Long says. In addition, Viettel e-payment subscribers can access a range of banking services such as savings accounts.

Winrock’s partnership with Viettel and VNFF is making Vietnam’s pioneering PFES system more efficient and transparent. The rains will still fall, the roads will still flood. But with easy and predictable transactions, all parties will have more trust in a system that is currently creating $125 million per year for forest conservation.

In August, our team conducted a mission to Madre de Dios, Peru, for the Climate Pathway Project. The project works with state and regional governments in Latin America, supporting them to track emissions and develop long-term decarbonization pathways. The project will analyze each state and region to develop a plan that allows for growth alongside ambitious long-term emissions reductions.

ABOUT THE REGION

Madre de Dios, translated as Mother of God, is a region in the southeast of Peru and receives its name from the main river of the region. It is 85 300 km² and, with a population of approximately 140,000 inhabitants, is the least densely populated region of the country.

Forestry, oil and mining, agriculture and tourism are motors of the economy in the region and it’s one of the few regions in Peru that has two international boundaries — with Brazil and Bolivia.

Madre de Dios is part of the Amazon biome and is home to a record-breaking number of species. It is a culturally diverse place with populations from the Andean region, Amazonian indigenous peoples from seven different ethnicities as well as indigenous people living in voluntary isolation.

The region is committed to reducing its emissions in the long-term and undertaking ambitious climate action with land use change responsible for the majority of Madre de Dios’ greenhouse gas emissions.