From November 2019 to February 2020, SDC held planning and other workshops to socialize the preliminary version of the PRODOC of the Resilient Andes Regional Initiative.
Regional meeting: Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru for a resilient Andean region
Over 45 government representatives from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru met on 14 and 15 January in Lima, to socialize and get feedback on the preliminary draft of PRODOC of the Regional Initiative Andes Resilient to Climate Change, and for establishing the priorities of issues of common interest for discussions and inter-learning between peers, which this initiative will promote.
The purpose of the workshop was to i) share the progress of the three countries in planning and implementing their climate commitments on adaptation, particularly in agriculture, food security and water; ii) provide input to the preliminary plan for the first phase of Resilient Andes; iii) agree on issues of common interest and priority for discussions and inter-learning among peers in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru; and iv) develop their partnerships and commitments for implementing the first phase of the project.
“Swiss Cooperation (SDC) has been working in the framework of regional programmes that give priority to issues of adaptation and mitigation to climate change, emphasising natural resources and water resources management, in order to protect the most vulnerable communities. It is in this framework that Resilient Andes will play an important role,” said Jocelyn Ostolaza, SDC’s Programme Officer.
Martin Jaggi, director of Swiss Cooperation in Peru, stressed that the Resilient Andes initiative will take the previous experiences and lessons learned from the Climate Change Adaptation Programme (PACC Peru), an initiative SDC promoted for eight years, and which Helvetas Peru facilitated and implemented with the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment; and the field experiences in Bolivia and Ecuador, in order to scale up these lessons learned to the region and to public policy level.
Learn more about the workshop’s impact, from the participants themselves in the following vdeo:
Planning workshops
The Swiss Embassy hosted two meetings on 21 and 22 November, for socializing the initiative and identifying synergies and alliances between projects, programmes and institutions. Participants identified key points for the first phase of programme implementation (2020-2023), currently in its start-up phase.
Andes Resilient to Climate Change aims to engage other countries in a more regional and systematic approach. In Martin Jaggi’s words: “As we are a regional office, our actions should focus not only on Peru but on several countries in the Andean region, which is what we are seeking with the new Resilient Andes initiative”.
On the first day, the workshop held activities for identifying all the interventions (projects and initiatives) supported by other international cooperation agencies, in order to find opportunities to coordinate, link up with and complement them.
The second day of the meeting was a good opportunity to analyse the final report of the Temporary Multi-sector Working Party in charge of providing technical information to guide the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDT).
They also identified the main NDCs linked to water and agriculture to which the Resilient Andes programme could add value, focusing on those that give special importance to the Andean rural and high mountain environments.
These participatory discussion meetings were attended by representatives of international cooperation agencies and of the Ministries of the Environment, Agriculture, and Development and Social Inclusion and their related departments, and officials from Swiss Cooperation, IFAD and technical staff from HELVETAS and AVINA.
About Resilient Andes
The Andean Regional Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change will help increase the resilience of the most vulnerable communities living in Andean mountain ecosystems to the effects of climate change and natural hazards, by increasing their food and water security through the sustainable management of natural resources. The initiative is promoted by SDC’s Global Programme on Climate Change and Environment, facilitated by Helvetas Swiss Interco-operation and the Avina Foundation, and will be implemented in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. The first phase will start in 2020 and end in 2024. Its global partners are the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a strategic ally.
For further information:
Andes Resilientes, fact sheet, Embassy of Switzerland to Peru, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
