Event

Background

The Philippines is among the most at risk to natural hazards in the world according to the World Risk Index released in 2011.  Its level of risk is not only because of the country’s exposure to natural hazards but because its current coping and adaptive capacities have not been fully developed to the level that will significantly reduce vulnerabilities to natural hazards, particularly to the changing climate.

Over the past years, the Philippines, knowing how vulnerable it is, have crafted a Climate Change Law (Republic Act 9729) that paves the way for the crafting of a National Climate Change Adaptation Plan and the Local Climate Change Action Plans. Over the past years, there has been a repackaging of development programs, projects and activities so they can aptly and distinctly be identified as adaptation or risk reduction initiatives.  Many local government units who have made this attempt know that their plans will be eventually pass the test of climate resilience. So a current question among local government units of the Philippines is “what are the more appropriate and context-specific adaptation options available for their local respective local government units?”

The Adaptation Knowledge Platform UNEP has partnered with the Ateneo School of Government for the conduct of a Philippine workshop that will specifically brought together selected Local Government Units, government and non-government institutions and other stakeholders to help facilitate a sharing on the state of Climate Change Adaptation in Local Government Units (LGUs) and facilitate a process of crafting of a Local Government Climate Change Adaption Capacity Development Strategy that could possibly complement existing initiatives of regional, national and local institutions in the Philippines. 

The workshop was designed as a series in order to draw as much perspectives many perspectives on the climate change adaptation work with and in LGUs of the Philippines. 

a.       Philippine stakeholders workshop:  Introduction to the Adaptation Knowledge Platform (20-21 March)

b.       Related stakeholders workshop:  examining the State of the Adaptation Science and Technology in the Philippines (19 March 2012) AND   Local CC Adaptation Strategizing Workshop with the CSOs ( 22-23 March) in partnership with Aksyon Klima

Workshop Objectives

• A better appreciation of the climate change challenges and the state of climate change adaptation in local government units (LGUs);

• Engaged in dynamic knowledge building process to better understand the nexus between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, the evolving analysis of vulnerabilities, and the pathways to resilience through adaptation options

• Contributed to the crafting of a Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Capacity Development Strategy

Workshop Output

A scoping assessment report on climate change adaptation in the Philippines highlighting the following:

• Identified mechanisms for engagement of the LGUs and other Stakeholders in the Regional Adaptation Knowledge Platform
• Indicative Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Capacity Development Strategy in the Philippines

The report has been published and can be found at http://www.climateadapt.asia/resources/publication/view/95

Expected Workshop Outcome

An Adaptation Knowledge Platform among Local Government Units and other stakeholders in the Philippines that engages with the Regional Knowledge Platform

Identification of adaptation governance and policy, capacity building, processes and structures that will enable LGUs to develop climate resilience