Ganta, Niimba County – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in partnership with the Ministry of Finance Development planning (MFDP) Tuesday began a two day technical workshop on the climate public expenditure and institutional review (CPEIR) and Climate finance tracking system.
The overarching objectives of the workshop is to build stakeholders capacity in understanding the CPEIR process and institutional requirement; also to enhance technicians understanding of basic climate related expenditure; collect information and validate climate change related expenditure for CPEIR process among others.
The National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) Project supports the Government of Liberia to advance its National Adaptation Plan process in climate sensitive sectors. The project focuses on strengthening institutional frameworks and coordination for the implementation of the NAP process, increasing the knowledge base to scale up adaptation, building capacity for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning and budgeting processes as well as formulating financing mechanisms for scaling-up adaptation and tracking climate finance.
The CPEIR under Component three of the NAP: “Building capacity for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into planning, and budgeting processes and systems” is expected to cover expenditure relating to environmental protection, conservation, and other climate expenditure between the periods 2015 to 2019.
Through the NAP, Liberia sees the opportunity to put in place mechanisms to track climate finance and advocate for more finance for climate actions and accountability to enhance climate resilience in the country. Establishing a comprehensive picture of the climate finance landscape is critical to this end and, ultimately, a prerequisite for ensuring if there are enough resources to build adaptive capacity and if available limited financial resources are reaching the needy and are effectively used.
Making opening remarks and Representing MFDP, the Assistant Minister for Development planning, Benedict Kolubah said that the Ministry of Finance is grateful to be a part of “the process” at the same time acknowledging that there are financing gaps in the sector.
“We are not tracking those resources that come to our country; so when you look at the volume of those resources it’s huge and most times we can not account for them,” stated Min Kolubah who added that if the Climate Financing project must succeed “we will succeed together as a country.”
Also speaking, the manager of Multilateral Environmental agreements at the EPA, Jefferson Nyandibo also revealed that monies that come to Liberia for environmental activities are ‘quite scary’ because when the fundings are marched against said achievements, it doesn’t add up.
“We need to use best practices or adapt to new systems or measures so that it brings check and balance to monies we receive at the same time pledging to use them for things we want to do,” revealed Mr. Nyandibo.
For his part, the Country Director of Conservation International (CI), expressed his delight for being a part of such an event as he called on everyone present at the workshop to continue to be a part of activities that will foster the development of Liberia.
“For CI, we are also happy to be a part of this process because the Liberia Nationally Determined Contributions is being revised and we are required to do the costing; once this is done am sure the appropriate costing will be approved,” explained Mr. Mulbah who challenged all participants to put in their best efforts.
Participants of the workshop included representatives of government line ministries and agencies of the climate sensitive sectors, including M&E, budget and planning staff as well as representatives from the civil society, experts and technicians.