On December 2nd, the UNFCCC secretariat, UN Environment and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) co-convened a Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative (LAKI) satellite event to turn knowledge into action during the Resilient Hindu Kush Himalaya conference.
Despite the growing body of knowledge, lack of locally accessible and usable knowledge continues to hinder the implementation of successful climate change adaptation actions. The LAKI, a collaborative effort by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), aims to address these knowledge barriers by bringing together experts and practitioners from subregions across the world.
During the first phase of the LAKI, UNFCCC and UN Environment along with their regional partners have successfully delivered six priority-setting workshops covering 38 countries including 11 least developed countries, 13 African countries and 3 small island developing States.
The context for the LAKI satellite event was set by presentations from David Molden, the Director General of ICIMOD, Mozaharul Alam, Regional Climate Change Coordinator from UN Environment, Rojina Mandahar, Climate Change Adaptation Programme Officer from the UNFCCC Secretariat, and Neera Shrestha Pradhan, Programme Coordinator at ICIMOD. Following this, participants broke into eight small groups to discuss the following:
- Community based flood early warning systems;
- Water-less closed system toilets;
- Flood resilient housing;
- Solar pumps;
- Managing springs;
- Climate resilient agricultural packages for smallholder farmers;
- Agriculture and drought advisories;
- Regional Flood Information System in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH-HYCOS).
Each discussion group focused on proposals or actions to close one or more to priority LAKI knowledge gaps related to their thematic discussion area.
Some of the proposed actions included:
- Providing access to adequate locally usable knowledge and information on weather and seasonal forecasting to assist farm production operations (Agriculture);
- Sharing of adaptation options/technologies suitable for addressing context specific climate extremes and impacts (Agriculture);
- Sharing of successful water management practices such as adaptation technologies or water allocation and management during both droughts and floods (Water resources);
- Ensuring Himalayan and downstream community access to multiple hazard early warning systems for droughts, landslides and floods, including debris flows and glacial lake outbursts (Water resources).
Many of the actions proposed on the day are expected to be submitted as action pledges by ICIMOD and the partner institutions.
Next steps:- ICIMOD will support collaborating partners to submit these action pledges;
- Partners were advised to implement actions before the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN) forum in April 2018 so that progress/deliverables can be showcased during the forum. Outcomes could also be disseminated through events during Subsidiary Body meetings or COP 24;
- Partners were advised of opportunities to link their work with the UNFCCC process through action pledges under the NWP.
To learn more about the LAKI satellite event, please visit
here.
To learn more about the LAKI, please visit
here and download the LAKI brochure
here.