CDKN has released a set of country and regional snapshots featuring highlights of projects and achievements from Asia over the last quarter.

Snapshots from Bangladesh,  India Nepal and  Pakistan, as well as one for the whole South East Asia aim to share CDKN’s best practices with policy-makers, practitioners and other stakeholders.

Some highlights of the stories in the snapshot include:

In Bangladesh, a team of local and international academics have quantified the extent and spatial distribution of climate-induced migration following a request from the Government for more evidence on the reality of this practice. They are have also made recommendations for how seasonal migration can be better regulated and supported, such as setting up migration processing centres in climate vulnerable regions. The findings of this project – already published in a range of documents – have received great interest from within Bangladesh and beyond.

In India, on the back of a heat wave in 2010 which claimed hundreds of lives, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in partnership with an international coalition of health and academic groups and with CDKN support, has developed the Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan. Aimed at increasing awareness, sharing information and coordinating responses in order to reduce the health effects of heat on vulnerable populations, the action plan is the first comprehensive plan of its kind in India

In Nepal there has been a smooth transition from the Gambia to Nepal as Chair of the LDC Group within the UNFCCC, with Joint-Secretary Prakash Mathema representing the group as chairperson in a range of forums, and issuing official statements and press releases. This was kicked-off with a meeting in Kathmandu at the end of March of some of the key negotiators of the LDC Group to reflect on the outcome of the latest negotiations that took place last year in Doha, and to define priorities, goals and a strategy to achieve them during Nepal’s Chairmanship. Since 2011 CDKN has supported Nepal’s strategic engagement with the UNFCCC, which is now focused on their new challenging role within the LDC group.

In Pakistan CDKN has responded to a request by the Government to support the next steps for implementation of the National Climate Change Policy. Following a series of consultations and utilising local and international experts a nationally appropriate work programme for climate compatible development has been presented. This is formed of a series of actions that can be taken immediately, but which are the foundations for leading to a National Adaptation Plan (NAP), National Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) Framework, and Second National Communication to the UNFCCC

In South East Asia CDKN has recently launched a partnership with the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands and the University of Mataram to develop a detailed, finance-ready NAMA proposal for small and medium scale renewable energy initiatives (<10MWe) in the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) province. This NAMA proposal will support the implementation of provincial emissions reduction action plan in NTB. In developing this proposal the team will focus on designing financial support mechanisms for renewable energy, but will also look at other barriers such as technical capacity, grid connection and regulatory issues. The positive response from national and provincial planning and energy agencies, as well as interest from provincial banks indicates that bottom-up green growth could be the future in Indonesia.

Look out for the next quarterly snaphots for more news and highlights.