AFB/PPRC.13/12 17 October 2013 Adaptation Fund Board Project and Programme Review Committee Thirteenth Meeting Bonn, Germany, 29-30 October 2013 Agenda item 4 i) PROPOSAL FOR NEPAL AFB/PPRC.13/12 I. Background 1. The Operational Policies and Guidelines (OPG) for Parties to Access Resources from the Adaptation Fund (the Fund), adopted by the Adaptation Fund Board (the Board), state in paragraph 42 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 endorsement of the Board. In the second step, the fully- developed project/programme document would be reviewed by the PPRC, and would ultimately require the Board’s approval. 2. The Templates approved by the Board (OPG, 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 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 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 Fund was sent out on April 8, 2010. 7. According to the Board Decision B.12/10, a project or programme proposal needs to be received by the secretariat no less than nine weeks before a Board meeting, in order to be considered by the Board in that meeting. 8. The following fully-developed project document titled “Adapting to Climate Induced Threats to Food Production and Food Security in the Karnali Region of Nepal” was submitted for 1 AFB/PPRC.13/12 Nepal by the World Food Programme (WFP), which is a Multilateral Implementing Entity of the Fund. This is the fourth submission of the project as a one-step proposal but the second time it is presented to the PPRC. It was submitted to the nineteenth and the twentieth meetings of the Board but was withdrawn both times by the proponent following initial technical review. It was then submitted to the twenty-first meeting, and the Board decided to: (a) Not approve the project document, as supplemented by the clarification response provided by World Food Programme (WFP) to the request made by the technical review; (b) Suggest that WFP reformulates the proposal taking into account the observations in the review sheet annexed to the notification of the Board’s decision, as well as the following observations: (i) The project reasoning should seriously consider assigning the execution duties to the Government, in order to build the Government’s ownership and capacity to manage adaptation activities for the long-term. If this is not possible and the Government wishes that WFP execute the project, the project design should nevertheless ensure that the project would build the Government’s capacity and ownership, and include activities to that effect, even if that might increase the budget and time needed for the project’s implementation (ii) The proposal should seek to more strongly ensure that sustainable institutional and financial arrangements are made for the maintenance of proposed assets and, if necessary, include activities to that effect. (iii) The proposal should better explain the alignment, synergies and avoidance of duplication with the projects financed by the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience. (c) Request FNE to transmit the observations referred to in paragraph (b) above to the Government of Benin. (Decision B.21/11) 9. The current submission was received by the secretariat in time to be considered in the twenty-second Adaptation Fund Board meeting. The secretariat carried out a technical review of the project proposal, using the diary number NPL/MIE/Food/2012/1, and completed a review sheet. 10. In accordance with a request to the secretariat made by the Board in its 10th meeting, the secretariat shared this review sheet with WFP, and offered it the opportunity of providing responses before the review sheet was sent to the PPRC. 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, and the comments received from the civil society in the last section. 2 AFB/PPRC.13/12 Project Summary Nepal – Adapting to Climate Induced Threats to Food Production and Food Security in the Karnali Region of Nepal Implementing Entity: WFP Programme Execution Cost: USD 129,765.00 Programme Total Cost: USD 8,780,793.00 Implementing Fee: USD 746,367.00 Financing Requested: USD 9,527,160.00 Programme Background and Context: The goal of the proposed project is to increase adaptive capacity of climate vulnerable and food insecure poor by improved management of livelihood assets in the Karnali mountain districts of Nepal. It has three objectives: 1. Strengthened local capacity to identify climate risks and design adaptive strategies 2. Diversified livelihood and strengthened food security for climate vulnerable poor in target areas 3. Increased resilience of natural systems that support livelihoods to climate change induced stresses The proposed project aims to meet these objectives, in a situation where the rural agricultural livelihoods depend on the health of forest, land and water resources, by enhancing agro- ecosystem services that increase production, reduce food insecurity and also directly generate income and energy for rural people. Component 1: Develop local, district and national capacity to plan, implement and monitor adaptation and risk reduction actions (USD 1,349,440) Component 1 aims to lay the foundation on which project interventions would be designed and implemented, and plans to do so by enabling the active participation of climate vulnerable and food insecure poor in developing local climate risk reduction strategies and actions, and strengthening ownership and management of climate risk reduction activities and replication of lessons at district/national levels. The specific activities would include training and mobilizing community representatives, field coordinators and technicians at village, ilaka (government extension unit) and district to design, implement and monitor local adaptation strategies, developing local climate adaptation and food security plans with prioritized actions; and integrating gender and social inclusion in to the adaptation planning processes. The component would also integrate local adaptation plans into sector-wise, local and district planning processes; integrated climate resilience to planning processes and development projects of key national ministries; and conduct periodic assessment and document project lessons for dissemination at community, district and regional levels. Component 2: Build household and community resilience and increase adaptive capacity of climate vulnerable poor in 22 VDCs in Jumla, Kalikot and Mugu districts (USD 7,301,585) Component 2 would aim at diversifying and strengthening livelihoods, livelihood assets and improved access to food for climate vulnerable households. It would plan to achieve this 3 AFB/PPRC.13/12 through: providing increased income opportunity for vulnerable households, especially during agricultural lean season, through building physical and natural livelihood assets; increasing local availability of and access to food and nutrition through better storage and value-addition in all target village development committees (VDCs); using improved and adapted current crop and livestock management practices to climate risks; increasing income through livelihood and agricultural diversification using local resources; and introducing renewable energy based systems to support women-led enterprises. 4 AFB/PPRC.13/12 ADAPTATION FUND BOARD SECRETARIAT TECHNICAL REVIEW OF PROJECT/PROGRAMME PROPOSAL PROJECT/PROGRAMME CATEGORY: REGULAR PROJECT _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Country/Region: Nepal