AFB/PPRC.5/5 June 6, 2011 Adaptation Fund Board Project and Programme Review Committee Fifth Meeting Bonn, June 20, 2011 PROPOSAL FOR ARGENTINA I. Background 1. The Operational Policies and Guidelines for Parties to Access Resources from the Adaptation Fund, adopted by the Adaptation Fund Board, state in paragraph 41 that regular adaptation project and programme proposals, i.e. those that request funding exceeding US$ 1 million, would undergo either a one-step, or a two-step approval process. In case of the one- step process, the proponent would directly submit a fully-developed project proposal. In the two- step process, the proponent would first submit a brief project concept, which would be reviewed by the Project and Programme Review Committee (PPRC) and would have to receive the approval by the Board. In the second step, the fully-developed project/programme document would be reviewed by the PPRC, and would finally require Board’s approval. 2. The Templates Approved by the Adaptation Fund Board (Operational Policies and Guidelines for Parties to Access Resources from the Adaptation Fund, Annex 3) do not include a separate template for project and programme concepts but provide that these are to be submitted using the project and programme proposal template. The section on Adaptation Fund Project Review Criteria states: For regular projects using the two-step approval process, only the first four criteria will be applied when reviewing the 1st step for regular project concept. In addition, the information provided in the 1st step approval process with respect to the review criteria for the regular project concept could be less detailed than the information in the request for approval template submitted at the 2nd step approval process. Furthermore, a final project document is required for regular projects for the 2nd step approval, in addition to the approval template. 3. The first four criteria mentioned above are: 1. Country Eligibility, 2. Project Eligibility, 3. Resource Availability, and 4. Eligibility of NIE/MIE. 4. The fifth criterion, applied when reviewing a fully-developed project document, is: 5. Implementation Arrangements. 5. Based on the Adaptation Fund Board Decision B.9/2, the first call for project and programme proposals was issued and an invitation letter to eligible Parties to submit project and programme proposals to the Adaptation Fund was sent out on April 8, 2010. 6. According to the Adaptation Fund Board Decision B.12/10, a project or programme proposal needs to be received by the secretariat not less than nine weeks before a Board meeting, in order to be considered by the Board in that meeting. 7. The following project document titled ―Increasing Climate Resilience and Enhancing Sustainable Land Management in the Southwest of the Buenos Aires Province‖ was submitted by the World Bank, which is a Multilateral Implementing Entity of the Adaptation Fund. This is the first submission of the project, using the two-step proposal process. It was received by the secretariat in time to be considered in the 14th Adaptation Fund Board meeting. The secretariat 1 carried out a technical review of the project proposal, assigned it the diary number ARG/MIE/Rural/2011/1, and filled in a review sheet. 8. In accordance with a request to the secretariat made by the Adaptation Fund Board in its 10th meeting, the secretariat shared this review sheet with the World Bank, and offered it the opportunity of providing responses before the review sheet was sent to the Project and Programme Committee of the Adaptation Fund. 9. The secretariat is submitting to the Project and Programme Review Committee the summary of the project, prepared by the secretariat, in Annex 1. The secretariat is also submitting to the Committee the technical review sheet and the responses provided by the World Bank, in an addendum to this document. 2 II. Project Summary Argentina – Increasing Climate Resilience and Enhancing Sustainable Land Management in the Southwest of the Buenos Aires Province Implementing Entity: World Bank Project/Programme Execution Cost: USD 607,000 Project/Programme Total Cost: USD 4,107,500 Implementing Fee: USD 349,138 Finance Requested: USD 4,456,638 Project/Programme Background and Context: According to the climate scenarios developed with the regional high resolution model for the 21st Century, a considerable temperature increase is expected for the whole of the Argentine territory. The proposed project aims to reduce climate vulnerability of the agriculture sector in the Southwest of the Province of Buenos Aires, which is suffering from man-made and increasingly climate change induced desertification processes. The proposed project would enhance the climate resilience and sustainable land management of affected agro-ecosystems through pilot adaptation measures focusing on water, crops and livestock management. Component 1: Implementation of Measures to Reduce Institutional Vulnerability (USD 350,000) This component aims at improving response and integral planning capacity of local institutions by means of participatory governance systems. To that end, an Early Warning System for Climate Change and Desertification will be created in cooperation with the relevant technical institutions. Institutional capacity building will be provided in order to build and sustain these processes at institutional level. Regional consultative multi-stakeholder Regional Consultative Observatory on Climate Change and Desertification will be established to mainstream climate change adaptation into sectoral development planning and public policy-making processes. Technical training program will be arranged for teams of government officials. Component 2: Implementation of Measures to Reduce Community-level Vulnerability (USD 350,000) Component 2 of the project aims at modifying negative patterns of socio-productive interaction with the local environment. The approach of this component is to promote induction and adoption of change in community relations with the natural environment, and will involve a training program on climate change and different adaptation options for disseminators and opinion leaders, a training program for rural school teachers, and a gender-sensitive program to empower farmers and their families and strengthen their social role for sustainable development. Component 3: Implementation of Concrete Adaptation Measures with a Special Focus on Productive Approaches (USD 2,700,000) Component 3 will include measures that will be discussed, defined and put in practice jointly with the zone’s farmer families and related technical institutions. The production-based measures are expected to include: a) Installation of microsystems for irrigation and rainwater harvesting; b) Implementation of crop rotation systems, diversification, time alteration of sowing, organic agriculture in demonstration sites; c) Implementation of adaptation measures such as forage banks, silvo pastoral production, pasture recovery and sustainable plot management through revolving funds; and 3 d) Participatory development of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) aimed at enhancing management plans for production and adoption of a voluntary code of climate resilient GAP. Component 4: Implementation of a Sustainability/ Exit Strategy (USD 100,500) This component will include generating, during the project implementation, necessary institutional and community agreements for the measures to be sustained beyond project closure. To that end, it is necessary to create a policy framework, taking into account regulatory as well as material needs that contribute to continuation of key activities by stakeholders, and a commitment to demonstrable dissemination of lessons and experience. Component 5: Monitoring and Evaluation (USD 217,000) This component is aimed at participatory monitoring and control of the processes and impact evaluation. Beyond the overall benefits embedded with widely studied methodologies of participatory M&E, the purpose for the monitoring is to serve local capacity building processes. This component is aimed at developing continuous improvement measures and is therefore strongly linked to the Sustainability/Exit Strategy. 4 REQUEST FOR PROJECT/PROGRAMME FUNDING FROM ADAPTATION FUND The annexed form should be completed and transmitted to the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat by email or fax. Please type in the responses using the template provided. The instructions attached to the form provide guidance to filling out the template. Please note that a project/programme must be fully prepared (i.e., fully appraised for feasibility) when the request is submitted. The final project/programme document resulting from the appraisal process should be attached to this request for funding. Complete documentation should be sent to The Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat 1818 H Street NW MSN G6-602 Washington, DC. 20433 U.S.A Fax: +1 (202) 522-3240/5 Email: [email protected] 5 ACRONYMS AR4 Cuarto Informe de Evaluación Forth Assessment Report BID Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo Inter-American Development Bank BPA Buenas Prácticas Agropecuarias Good Agricultural Practices CEPAL Comisión Económica para América Latina Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) CIM Centro Internacional de Migraciones International Organization for Migration (IOM) CIM – GTZ Programa de Expertos Integrados de la Integrated expert programme of the German Agencia de Cooperación Alemana: Centro Development Cooperation Agency “Center para la Migración