Transcript Comments & Feedback on “Policy Brief on Towards Climate

Comments & Feedback on
“Policy Brief on Towards Climate Change
Resilience Building of Vulnerable Mountain
People and their Local Governments”
Bhushan Tuladhar
Comments on “Relevant Policies”
• Toolkit for Community Based Vulnerability
Assessment is not a policy and need not
be mentioned.
• Some sectoral policies may be relevant as
well although they may not explicitly
mention Climate Change
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In the context of Ramechaap, Water resources
(or water supply) and local governance related
policies could also be analyzed
Key Policy Gaps
• The four gaps identified (integrating
agency; communication mechanism;
arrangement for identifying vulnerable
areas; role of ‘learning by doing’) focus on
mechanisms for implementing the policy
rather than the policy as a whole.
Need to analyze “what is in the policy” as well as
“how it is to be implemented”
Climate Change Policy
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Vision
Mission
Goal
Quantitative targets (7)
Objectives (7)
Policies (61 policies under 7 broad headings)
Strategies
Institutional
Financial aspects
Legal aspects
All aspects of CC Policy, not just implementation
strategy, should be done
Examples of policy gaps in the CC policy
• One of the stated objective is, ”To establish a
Climate Change Center as an effective technical
institution to address issues of climate change and
also strengthen existing institutions”
• May be its objective should be to establish an
effective institutional framework for addressing
issues related to climate change both at the central
and the local level in a coordinated manner
Gap 1: Lack of effective integrating agency at the central level
to push the climate agenda in an effective and holistic manner
• “Climate Change Council, is too high an authority to
ensure effective implementation” – CC Council is not
supposed to ensure effective implementation. It is the
sectoral agencies that do the coordination for
implementation. At the central level MoE and NPC are
two agencies responsible for coordination. According
to the CC policy, “Coordinating all climate change
programmes by the Climate Change Council at policy
level and by the MoE at functional level”
• “lack of explicit arrangement regarding who will
insure implementation of LAPA framework.” – NAPA
says that local governments are responsible for
implementing NAPA at the local level. This would
include LAPA. Energy and Environment Unit within
DDC could play an important role
Gap 1: Lack of effective integrating agency at the central level
to push the climate agenda in an effective and holistic manner
• Lack of resources in MoE has been rightly pointed
out but the policies do talk about strengthening MOE
• “Role of MLD has been overlooked” – not completely
when NAPA clearly mentions that 80% of the
resources will go to local governments. But yes this
is a key ministry and their role should be more
explicitly mentioned.
• Role of NPC should also be explicitly mentioned.
• No robust agency to address water scarcity – This
responsibility is scattered across various ministries &
Departments (DHM, DWSS, DOLIDAR, Dept of soil
conservation, etc). May be WECS could address this
at the policy level. At the local level D-WASH-CC
could play an important role
Gap 2: Lack of two-way communication mechanisms
among and between the center and the local levels
• If we consider MLD, instead of MOE to be
responsible for adaptation at the local level, then
there would be a two-way communication
mechanism
• “reflective shield” between centre & local should be
analyzed to define this more clearly. Is this the
knowledge provider, message, medium, or recipient.
• “Ensuring adaptation intervention as rights of the
local communities appears an uphill struggle when
viewed at the current community belief system
which tend view the current climate crisis as a
divine” – not clear
Gap 3: Weak arrangements to rightly identifying and
to intervening the vulnerable areas and communities
• Use of vulnerability assessment is being done and it
is good but the methodology is not clear. E.g. a
recent study commissioned by MOE as part of the
2nd National Communication Report has come up
with totally different conclusions regarding
vulnerability of different districts. So the gap is not
in the arrangement. It is on using this arrangement
properly. Now with the toolkit for doing community
based vulnerability assessment, we have a tool for
use at the local as well.
Gap 4: Role and space for ‘learning by doing’ is not
adequately emphasized by policy
• The four points describing this gap does
not really do describe this. It focuses on
“intersectoral approach” rather than
“learning by doing”
Comments on Recommendations
• Recommendations are related to implementation of
policies rather than improving the policy framework
• Recommendations should be based on and linked to
evidence from the field work in Ramechaap
• First recommendation: “establish Climate Change
Council at the apex level” ? CCC is already there. If
we meant to say CC Centre, it is not the apex body
• Recommendations need to be specific.
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E.g. type of coordination mechanism in the district? DMRC
under CDO; D-WASH-CC under LDO; DCCAM Network in
Nawalparasi
Solution to water stress – e.g. IWRM
• NAPA does stress on water. All 9 priority activities are
related to water
Comments on Recommendations
• Not sure if MoE needs to go the grassroots by itself
• Some recommendations are too broad
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Impervious layer hindering effective communication between
the centre and the local level must be severed with ultimate
aim of insuring unhindered to-and-fro flow of information
• Others are too specific
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Possibilities of crop & livestock insurance have to be explored
• Ways to strengthen the planning and implementing
mechanism at the local level needs to be
recommended if this is a major problem
Overall, focus on policy framework and make the
recommendations evidence based and specific