MANILA – July 9, 2015 – To enable developing countries to achieve win-win solutions in the pursuit of both climate resilience and economic growth, GGGI conducted a whole-day consultation workshop that aimed to solicit insights and recommendations from national and local stakeholders of the Government of the Philippines regarding the initial draft of the Climate Resilient Green Growth (CRGG) Planning Framework.
The framework design builds on the lessons learned from the Demonstration of the Ecotown (Phase 1) Framework Project at the Municipal Level, which was completed in 2014. Going forward, GGGI has continued its partnership with the Climate Change Commission (CCC) to carry out the Ecotown Scale-Up (Phase 2) Project: Climate Resilient Green Growth Planning at the Provincial Level. This initiative aims to enhance climate resilience and promote inclusive green growth in the participating provinces through climate vulnerability assessment, identification of adaptation measures, and evaluation of economic development challenges and opportunities, among others.
The project is now at the stage of developing the CRGG Planning Framework, which will guide the identification and implementation of project activities in two pilot provinces, namely Palawan and Oriental Mindoro. The GGGI delegation included Dr. Imran Ahmad, Country Portfolio Director, and Dr. Yongsung Kim of the Knowledge Solutions Division, and engaged a group of experts from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) led by Dr. David Von Hippel to present the draft CRGG framework to the project team and local stakeholders from various agencies such as the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), etc.
In her opening remarks, CCC Assistant Secretary Joyceline Goco expressed her high hopes of exchanging meaningful insights with the participants to further enhance the draft framework and ensure its convergence with the national policies and institutional setting. She also highlighted the significant impact of the activity: “what we discuss and agree in this workshop have concrete implications on the lives of the people we serve.”
The CRGG framework is a participatory, systematic, and objective process for climate proofing of local development plans. It tackles how climate change adaptation will affect the achievement of development objectives; and how the achievement of development objectives will contribute to managing climate risks and promoting green growth. Thus, the CRGG highlights the mutually enforcing relationship between climate change adaptation and economic development as well as poverty reduction and social inclusion.
“We are achieving great progress in designing a framework that responds to the local setting and at the same time, opens huge windows of opportunity for replication elsewhere – both within and beyond the Philippines – considering the value-added contribution that this draft framework offers for developing countries suffering from extreme climate vulnerability,” said Dr. Imran Ahmad, GGGI’s Director of East Asia and the Pacific.
The draft CRGG framework will be revised accordingly based on the consolidated comments and the final version is to be presented in a final workshop in September.