About the workshops

Building on the GCCA experience, capacity-building and climate change mainstreaming appear to be crucial to facilitate the development and implementation of climate change related policies and programmes in partner countries.

The GCCA has thus developed a training on mainstreaming climate change into national development planning and budgeting. The workshops provide a solid basis to stakeholders dealing with planning or climate change who are interested in integrating climate change into their work.

The workshops complement GCCA funded programmes at regional and national levels, a number of which focus on making climate change mainstreaming a reality on the ground.

A first workshop was held in Vanuatu in the Pacific from 28 February to 2 March 2011, another session took place in Maseru, Lesotho from 25 October to 28 October 2011 followed the next month by two sessions Nairobi, Kenya (one in French and one in English), 15-17 November.  A last workshop is planned in 2011 in Dakar, Senegal (FR), 13-15 December). Further workshops will be organised in 2012 in Asia (namely in Bangkok, Thailand, 14-17 March 2012) and in the Caribbean (namely in Kingston, Jamaica, 23-26 April 2012).

Target audience

The target groups of the workshops are senior government officials from GCCA target countries (Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States) -from the Ministry of finance, planning or equivalent, with a key role in the budgetary process, and from the Ministry or agency in charge of climate change in the country.

The joint participation of senior officials from the national budgeting and planning and the climate change spheres is a hallmark of the workshops, and has proved to be of particular value and interest to participants.

Participants are not expected to have any in-depth knowledge of climate-related issues, or to have prior experience of mainstreaming climate change or environmental issues.

Objectives

The objectives of the workshops are to make participants:

• more aware of the benefits and the challenges of mainstreaming climate change adaptation and mitigation in national development planning and budgeting;
• more familiar with a framework and tools available for mainstreaming climate change;
• more motivated and better equipped to contribute to this mainstreaming process.

In addition, the workshops provide space for discussions and exchange, allowing participants to share their views, knowledge and experience, and to provide insights and feedback to the EC on climate change mainstreaming.

Profiles of the trainers

Catherine Paul holds a degree in Business and Consular Studies, a post-graduate diploma in Environmental Management and a post-graduate certificate in Applied Environmental Economics. She's currently finalizing a MSc in Applied Environmental Economics. Catherine has a strong professional record in the mainstreaming of environment and climate change in development cooperation programmes and projects, incl. support to EU Delegations on these issues.

She has contributed to the drafting of the EC Guidelines on the Integration of Environment and Climate Change in Development Cooperation (Nov. 2009) and (for EuropeAid, as lead author) of a series of sector-specific information notes on the implications of climate change and possible responses. Catherine has a strong background as a trainer on environment- and development-related issues; her experience includes both the development of training materials (incl. on-line modules) and the delivery of training. She has also been involved in research on aid modalities and aid effectiveness, with a focus on sector-wide approaches.

Peter Brinn has more than 25 years environmental experience of with over 5 years experience in integrating environment and climate change into EC development cooperation. Peter made a major contribution to the preparation of the ‘EC Guidelines on the Integration of Environment and Climate Change in Development Cooperation' 2009.

He has been involved in the organisation of international environment and climate change seminars in over 20 countries. He's very familiar with EC procedures in the cycle of operations for projects and budget support and has team leadership, feasibility, appraisal and project formulation experience. Peter has also a comprehensive knowledge of EC development co-operation procedures: projects; sector approaches and General Budget Support.

The Workshops are organized in modules : 

• Module 0: "Introduction" - Module

• Module 1: "Understanding climate change development linkages" - Module and handout

• Module 2: "Mainstreaming climate change and strengthening institutions and capacities" - Module and handout

• Module 3: "Understanding the basics of the climate change science" - Module and handout

• Module 4: "Understanding and planning under certainty" - Module and handout

• Module 5: "Raising awareness and building partnership" - Module and handout

• Module 6: "Mainstreaming climate change in national, sector and sub-national policies, strategies and programmes" - Module and handout

• Module 7: "Costing, assessing and selecting adaptation and mitigation options and measures" - Module and handout

• Module 8: "Mainstreaming climate change in the budgetary process" - Module and handout

• Module 9: "Mainstreaming climate change in monitoring systems" - Module and handout

• Module 10: "Synthesis, conclusions and way forward - Module and handout

Other documents: Acronyms, Glossary and References

The training materials and in particular exercises and case studies are adapted to the region in which the workshop takes place.

It is available for beneficiary countries and development partners which would be interested in holding a similar workshop on a national basis.

For more information, please contact : florine.thiery@gcca.eu