AFB/PPRC.10/15 3 December 2012 Adaptation Fund Board Project and Programme Review Committee Tenth Meeting Bonn, 11-12 November 2012 PROPOSAL FOR SEYCHELLES AFB/PPRC.10/14 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. In its 17th meeting, the Adaptation Fund Board decided (Decision B.17/7) to approve “Instructions for preparing a request for project or programme funding from the Adaptation Fund”, contained in the Annex to document AFB/PPRC.8/4, which further outlines applicable review criteria for both concepts and fully-developed proposals. 6. 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. 7. According to the paragraph 41 of the operational policies and guidelines, 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. 1 AFB/PPRC.10/14 8. The following fully developed project titled “Ecosystem Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Seychelles” was submitted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is a Multilateral Implementing Entity of the Adaptation Fund. This is the third submission of the project. It was first submitted as a project concept, using the two-step approval process, for the 14th Adaptation Fund Board meeting, and endorsed by the Board. It was submitted to the 18th Adaptation Fund Board meeting as fully developed project document and the Board decided to: (a) Not approve the project document, as supplemented by the clarification response provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the request made by the technical review; (b) Suggest that UNDP reformulates the proposal taking into account the following: i. Field surveys need to be carried out in the target watersheds in order to assess the current level of the targeted ecosystem services, through the measurement of different parameters, inter alia, levels of vegetation cover and soil erosion, species diversity, current soil water retention capacity etc. This would help to determine the appropriate interventions that will take effect in each watershed; ii. Once activities are selected, based on the field surveys, the proposal should articulate how these activities allow for achieving the “management of watersheds to enhance functional connectivity and the resilience of these areas to climate change and reduce water scarcity”; iii. In addition to the local watershed management committees, the activities under output 1.2 should also include the establishment of a supra-local coordination group that would monitor and assess that the watersheds functional connectivity was enhanced; iv. To ensure the achievement of its long term project objective, the project should help put in place a national monitoring system, including a “functional connectivity” monitoring system in order to assess the effectiveness of the project interventions in the long-term and to ensure an adaptive management of the watershed systems. Such a monitoring system entails investment and training in monitoring tools, inter alia geographic information system (GIS), on-the-ground measurement methods, environmental planning tools, and the monitoring of key indicators and long-term collection of key data that will be identified through the project. That could be complemented by additional rigorous scientific studies and modeling where necessary. The system should be developed by the project implementation team, in conjunction with the Ministry of the Environment and Energy, Public Utilities Corporation, the University of Seychelles, and relevant partner non-governmental organizations, the local watershed committees and the Rivers committee, and should be institutionalized and operational by the end of the project. Its sustainable financing could be assessed along with the options that will be explored under output 3.1.3; (c) Request UNDP to transmit the observations referred to in paragraph (b) above to the government of Seychelles. (Decision B.18/22) 2 AFB/PPRC.10/14 9. The current submission of a fully-developed project document was received by the secretariat in time to be considered in the 19th Adaptation Fund Board meeting. The secretariat carried out a technical review of the project proposal, assigned it the diary number SYC/MIE/Multi/2011/1, and filled in a review sheet. 10. 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 UNDP, and offered it the opportunity of providing responses before the review sheet was sent to the Project and Programme Committee of the Adaptation Fund. 11. The secretariat is submitting to the Project and Programme Review Committee the summary and, pursuant to decision B.17/15, the final technical review of the project, both prepared by the secretariat, along with the final submission of the proposal in the following section. 3 AFB/PPRC.10/14 II. Project Summary Seychelles – Ecosystem Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Seychelles Implementing Entity: UNDP Programme Execution Cost: USD 450,000 Total Programme Cost: 5,950,000 Implementing Fee: USD 505,750 Financing Requested: USD 6,455,750 Programme Background and Context: Seychelles is a SIDS particularly vulnerable to climate change and its associated impacts, characterized by a concentration of development on narrow coastal zones and non-resilient populations and ecosystems. The proposed project seeks to address two major climate change vulnerabilities in the country: water scarcity and coastal flooding. To do so, the project intends to take ecosystem based measures of restoring or maintaining key ecosystem services in the coastal and hinterland of the main granitic islands of Seychelles. The overall goal of the project is to ensure that development in the Seychelles is sustainable, and resilient to anticipated climate change effects. The objective is to incorporate ecosystem based adaptation into the country’s climate change risk management system to safeguard water supplies, threatened by climate change induced perturbations in rainfall and to buffer expected enhanced erosion and coastal flooding risks arising as a result of higher sea levels and increased storm surge. The proposal presents three components: • Component 1: Ecosystem-based adaptation approach to enhancing freshwater security and flood control in Mahé and Praslin under conditions of climate change • Component 2: Ecosystem-based adaptation approaches along the shorelines of the Granitic Islands reduce the risks of climate change induced coastal flooding • Component 3: Ecosystem based adaptation mainstreamed into development planning and financing Component 1: Ecosystem-based adaptation approach to enhancing freshwater security and flood control in Mahé and Praslin under conditions of climate change (USD 3,025,000) This Component will maintain and enhance upland wetlands in watersheds and strengthen the integrity of the forest landscape with a preference for endemic species, retain and improve water holding capacity (and biodiversity features), and undertake measures to maintain and enhance a balanced hydrological regime as much as possible by soil and water conservation measures, controlling drainage through various bio-engineering measures, improving run-of- river barrages and water control structures, sustainably managing watercourses