Provinces urged to manage climate funds

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Friday July 27th, 2012

PROVINCES benefiting from the Adaptation Fund project should ensure their changes to adapt to climate-change are planned, managed, monitored and supported by policies by 2016, United Nations development programme energy and environment programme analyst Gwen Maru says.
 At an inception workshop on the project, Maru said this meant the provincial governments must have in place plans, including disaster preparedness and response and coastal and inland zone management plans.
She said the provinces chosen for the project, including Morobe, Northern and East Sepik, must ensure the programmes were included in their budget to sustain it the four-year life of the project.
She said the project was targeted to reach at least 75% of the risk population through awareness activities.Maru said one way to ensure the project had an impact was to integrate climate change into the national school curriculum and university programmes and  ensure teachers were equipped with knowledge and material to teach the subject.
She said the projects had four components:
l Adaptation Fund has provided more than US$6 million (K12.5 million);
l UNDP providing US$100,000 (K208,000); and
l The national government contributing US220,000 (K458,000) to implement this project.
The programme starts this year.