NEWSLETTER Issue 8, January 2019
Facility developed by the EBRD with support from the CIF PPCR, the UK and the EBRD ETC Fund EBRD Early Transition countries Fund ("ETC Fund") is supported by Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taipei China and the United Kingdom
Finance Technology Innovation
PROJECT PROGRESS OVERVIEW
A warm welcome to the eighth issue of the CLIMADAPT program news-letter!
In this issue, we will update you on the latest CLIMADAPT programme’s activities focused on promoting climate resilience in Tajikistan. The last quarter of 2018 was a particularly active one for CLIMADAPT team, where our participation in events such as: UNDP Gender workshop, World Soil Day event and Grape Forum, enabled us to engage with over 340 people in Tajikistan. We are also pleased to present achievements of our partner financial institutions (PFIs) in this issue, Arvand and FMFB have fully disbursed their funds under the facility.
CLIMADAPT offers credit lines and technical assistance to local PFIs to
enhance their investments into the climate resilience technologies. Di-rect support to farmers and MSMEs is provided through the advisory support, knowledge dissemination and awareness raising. We are excit-ed to announce that CLIMADAPT loan portfolio has been fully utilized by our PFIs!
In 2019, in cooperation with our partners, we will continue our activi-ties to effectively reach out to all potential beneficiaries and promote the use of green technologies. The CLIMADAPT Team wishes you all a good start into the New Year 2019!
If you have any questions, please contact us directly on [email protected] or reach us at +992 93 433 9001.
Kairat Shalabay,
Team Leader,
CLIMADAPT
ABOUT US
10
million USD dollars disbursed
beneficiaries con-sisting of house-holds, farmers and MSMEs
PORTFOLIO AS OF 1st JANUARY 2019
climate resilience technologies supported
20
3548
CLIMADAPT’S GENDER ACHIEVEMENTS FEA-TURED ON GENDER DAY AT COP24, KATOWICE
The twenty-fourth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) took place during 2-14 December 2018 in Katowice, Po-land. The program included over 100 events, incorporating a range of formats, such as Davos-style events, roundtable discus-sions, digital dialogues, TED-style talks, video competitions, and the Global Climate Action Awards Ceremony. The event brought together representatives and leaders from different countries, industries and civil society working for a climate ac-tion agenda.
During the conference, the EBRD engaged with representatives of the public and private sectors to present its unique business model for addressing the global challenge of climate change and took part in several events focused on climate finance, climate mitigation and adaptation investments and policy dia-logue to help countries move towards low-carbon resilient path-ways.
Promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women was one of the key features of the conference this year. The EBRD is at the forefront of inclusive climate efforts, introducing innovative climate finance designed to give men and women equal opportunities. The CLIMADAPT case study – gender sen-sitive climate resilience investment was presented during the Gender Day, which was a success showcase of EBRD’s ap-proach of using innovative incentive schemes to increase out-reach to women.
World Soil Day (WSD) is celebrated annually on 5th December as a means to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and advo-cating for the sustainable management of soil resources. Soils have a great potential to filter and buffer contaminants, as well as to reduce the negative effects of pollution. Human activities such as unsustain-able farming practices, industrial activities and mining are the main sources of pollutants. To further promote sustainable land manage-ment practices in Tajikistan, CLIMADAPT actively supported the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) initiative and joined the WSD 2018 campaign. This campaign aimed to con-nect people with the ground, raise awareness and convey the mes-sage to fight against soil pollution for food security, human well-being and healthy ecosystems.
On 18th December 2018, the CLIMADAPT and FAO jointly conducted the event under the theme “Be the solution to soil pollution” in School #16 located in the Dusti district of Khatlon province. The event was attended by representatives of government and agricultur-al specialists, civil society and youth to discuss the importance of soil and exchange knowledge and experience under this theme. Master classes and case studies on healthy soil, efficient use of soil re-sources, especially the conservation of soil, proper composting and drip irrigation were organized for school children of this region. These events likely to help younger generation get acquainted with climate friendly agricultural technologies and farming practices.
CLIMADAPT JOINTLY CONDUCTED “BE THE SOLUTION TO SOIL POLLU-
TION” OUTREACH EVENT WITH FAO AS PART OF WORLD SOIL DAY
The international «16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence» campaign during 25 November - 10 December 2018 calls for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and to raise awareness of gender-based violence at local, regional and global levels. As part of this campaign, the CLIMADAPT in partnership with UNDP, organized a workshop on “Empowering Women in Energy Sector of Tajikistan” on 6th December 2018 in Dushanbe. The workshop aimed on reaching out and empowering women about the opportunities available for female entrepreneurs in the energy sector and climate resilient technologies.
The event was well-represented, including government, local and international organizations such as Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, State Environmental Committee, UNDP, ACTED, NGOs and local financial institutions and most importantly Tajik women entrepreneurs. A lively and interactive session involving presenta-
tions, Q&A and group work were well received by the participants. The CLIMADAPT and UNDP shared several success stories in im-plementing resource-efficient technologies such as solar PV panels and solar water heaters.
The CLIMADAPT actively promotes gender equality and women empowerment, contributing to increasing women's resilience to climate change by addressing gender gaps in access to finance in Tajikistan. The CLIMADAPT team will continue to put in efforts to identify barriers that women entrepreneurs may face in accessing finance and work on removing them in cooperation with the part-ners. A video of the coverage of this and other events can be found on our website.
SHARING ON HOW CLIMADAPT IS ENHANCING WOMEN’S RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE
On November 8th, 2018 the CIF/EBRD Evaluation and Learning activ-ity: “Building evidence base on how private sector investments sup-port gender-sensitive, climate resilient development: Tajikistan case” was held in Dushanbe. The representatives from the Government, the private sector, NGOs and development partners took part in this event. It was the third workshop, which aimed to present the results of the evaluation activities and knowledge dissemination strategy of the CIF Evaluation and Learning Activity. The evaluation covered Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) projects in Tajikistan including CLIMADAPT and focused on gender considerations and gender-related activities that have been integrated into the implementation, monitoring and evaluation phases of PPCR. During the workshop, the key findings and the recommendations of effective mechanisms that support the use of the findings in further engaging and mobiliz-ing private sector adaptation finance for gender-sensitive, climate
resilient development in Tajikistan were presented.
The CLIMADAPT was selected as a case study for Evaluation and Learning activity and a survey of CLIMADAPT sub borrowers was conducted to gather additional information about the impact of cli-mate smart technologies to clients’ daily activities. Since 2017, CLI-MADAPT project put a stronger emphasis on encouraging women sub-borrowers to adopt climate resilience technologies through the introduction of changes to program design and it was mentioned as an example of improving gender-responsive project implementation in Tajikistan. CLIMADAPT is committed to gender equality, the share of women in the total portfolio of CLIMADAPT is about 30%. CLI-MADAPT team delivered gender awareness workshops for PFIs’ per-sonnel to improve their knowledge and skills. Moreover, a special incentive system encourages partner financial institutions to support women clients. CLIMADAPT cooperates with different NGOs to pro-mote climate resilience technologies among their members, especial-ly women and rural households.
On December 12th 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations organized a conference on the topic: "Dining Grapes of Tajikistan: Efficient Production, Storage and Marketing". The conference was attended by the representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture of Tajikistan, the Institute of Agricul-ture, the Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture of the Republic of Moldova, International Experts, various NGOs, farmers and CLIMADAPT team.
The conference outlined key issues on methodology of cultivation of grapes, means of protecting them from bad weather and high
sun radiation, methods of cold storage, transportation and main priorities of Tajikistan’s viticulture and potential exports to foreign countries. Experts are confident that the potential of Tajik grapes is enormous, but the lack of modern knowledge and skills of farm-ers and limited access to finance negatively affected export pro-spects. With promoting modern climate friendly innovative tech-nologies for the agricultural sector a key feature of CLIMADAPT, our team actively participated in this event. The CLIMADAPT pro-ject can finance intensive orchards and irrigation systems, as well as cold storage facilities for grapes. Besides presenting and shar-ing with interested parties at the CLIMADAPT stand, relevant marketing collateral and case studies were also distributed.
CLIMADAPT PROMOTES INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND SOLUTIONS AT FAO GRAPE CONFERENCE
CLIMADAPT CASE PRESENTED AT EBRD/CIF GENDER WORKSHOP
In early November, the CLIMADAPT made a business trip to Bish-kek, Kyrgyzstan to participate in two events: Knowledge Sharing between CLIMADAPT and KYRSEFF teams and a Conference on ‘Accelerating Adoption of Climate Technologies in Kyrgyzstan’s Agrifood sector’.
KyrSEFF - an EBRD designed project, offers attractive loans for energy and water efficiency investment projects in Kyrgyzstan. CLIMADAPT and KyrSEFF shared knowledge and experience on the project objectives and key activities, cooperation with part-ners, eligible technologies, achievements and challenges. Aware-ness raising and knowledge dissemination on the long-term bene-fits of CR investments as well as policy dialogue measures are the key mechanisms in building green economies in both countries.
On November 2 2018, FAO UN together with EBRD organized a conference on Accelerating the Adoption of Climate Technologies in Kyrgyzstan’s agrifood sector, with key participants both from
government and private sectors, as well as various NGO's and development institutions. The purpose of the event was to identify the strategies for promotion and use of climate smart technologies in agrifood industry of Kyrgyzstan, such as drip irrigation, ad-vanced greenhouses, efficient agricultural machinery, zero tillage, solar pumps and several others.
The findings and lessons learnt from the study tour are very much relevant for Tajikistan and CLIMADAPT project in particular. Chal-lenges faced to further market penetration and growth of CR tech-nologies will require dialogue and coordinated efforts of the gov-ernment, donor community and private sector players. The CLI-MADAPT conveys our thanks to EBRD for the opportunity to learn about other GEFF programs as well as to the KyrSEFF team for hosting the team.
CLIMADAPT EXCHANGES PROJECT BEST PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNT WITH PARTNERS IN BISHKEK
The First Microfinance Bank (FMFB) and MDO Arvand have success-fully completed the utilization of their funds under the CLIMADAPT facility, each disbursing USD 1 million to sub-borrowers in climate resilience financing.
In total, the funds were distributed among 1026 beneficiaries includ-ing MSMEs, farmers and households from all over the country, in-cluding GBAO and Rasht regions. 30% of the beneficiaries are wom-en and 59% are rural. Concessional funding has contributed to the dissemination of climate resilience technologies such as drip irriga-tion, greenhouses, energy efficient home appliances, thermal insula-tion, rain water harvesting and water storages, solar panels and equipment modernization. Local financial institutions are the critical partners in delivering effective outreach to private sector, deployment of green investments and promoting innovative technologies for addressing climate change.
The CLIMADAPT conveys our thanks to the management and the staff of First Microfinance Bank and MDO Arvand for fruitful coopera-tion and partnership in promoting private sector development and a sustainable green economy in Tajikistan. We hope that cooperation will bring even better results in scaling up climate change and adap-tation measures in Tajikistan.
ARVAND AND FMFB ACHIEVEMENTS
