CDKN today releases its Annual Report 2016, celebrating more than six years of integrating climate change approaches into development policy and practice, and empowering the negotiators of the most climate-vulnerable countries to be influential actors on the global stage.

“There is a new consensus [that] progress on tackling climate change must be accelerated, says CDKN’s Executive Chair Simon Maxwell in his introductory remarks.

“We are pleased to have played our part in building this new consensus, including through our support to negotiators at the climate talks in Paris, as well as our work globally and in more than 70 countries,” he says.

CDKN’s unique blend of research, technical assistance and knowledge management has enriched the understanding of how climate compatible development can work and has delivered practical solutions.

CDKN’s Chief Executive Sam Bickersteth writes: “As climate changes accelerate around us, we know it is the capability of institutions, systems and above all people that will lead us to a safe, climate resilient and low-carbon future. Working alongside hundreds of partners in the global North and South, our team has sought to link up knowledge, learning and practice around climate and development policy at subnational, national and international levels.”

The report highlights CDKN’s tailored assistance, including supporting ten countries to prepare their national climate plans (known as ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’) for the Paris climate summit in 2015: Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Pakistan, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Uganda.

CDKN’s support ranged from developing projections of economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions in Peru and Bangladesh, to supplying technical experts in Uganda and Kenya and bolstering the Gambian government’s efforts to consult with national stakeholders on its climate commitments.

CDKN also continued its broader capability-building work in 2015-16. This ranged from assisting the governments of Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia to receive financing from the Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund – to working more broadly with Southern African universities to develop and test a curriculum on climate compatible development, which will nurture the next generation of leaders.

In 2015, countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals with the apex commitment to “leave no-one behind”. In this context, CDKN has redoubled its efforts to address social inclusion and particularly gender sensitive approaches in its programme. In the last year, CDKN published path-breaking research which demonstrates that giving women an equal place in the design and implementation of climate compatible development increases the effectiveness and sustainability of such programmes many times over.

CDKN’s partners in northern India, the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group, conclude: “Had women not participated actively, the project outcomes would have been considerably less, maybe around 10–20% of what was achieved. It is largely because of women that the project has been sustainable so far, as well as effective in resilience-building.”

A conclusion of CDKN’s Annual Report 2016 and guiding principle for CDKN’s future as a multi-donor programme is: ‘promoting gender equality boosts climate compatible development.’

The downloadable pdf at right is a low-resolution version of the entire report; download individual components here as higher-resolution files:

Part 1: Introduction, Chairman and CEO's statements

Part 2: Global

Part 3: Africa

Part 4: Asia

Part 5: Latin America and Caribbean

Part 6: CDKN in numbers