Capacity Building through Peer-to-peer exchange and knowledge sharing workshop on the implementation of Article 13 – for Transparency (CBIT)
Context:
With countries now transitioning to the Enhanced Transparency Framework, it is imperative to build capacity and countries to have functional Monitoring and Evaluation Framework/systems to enable consistent reporting trough Biennial Transparency Reports under the enhanced Transparency Framework. As part of implementing the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency project of South Africa, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) would like to learn and share with other countries who developed or in a process of developing and implementing the M&E systems.
The Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) was created at the request of Parties to help strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of developing countries to meet the enhanced transparency requirements defined in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.
The CBIT has three aims:
- Strengthen national institutions for transparency-related activities in line with national priorities.
- Provide relevant tools, training, and assistance for meeting the provisions stipulated in Article 13 of the Agreement.
- Assist in the improvement of transparency over time.
Goals:
The objectives of the Peer-to-peer exchange meetings are:
- To share knowledge and experience on climate change adaptation and mitigation planning and implementation, climate change monitoring, reporting, and verification.
- Demonstrate advantages of functional monitoring and evaluation systems for climate change in informing domestic policy development.
- Encourage gender mainstreaming in climate change development, implementation, and reporting.
Participant countries: South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Gambia, Ghana, Namibia, Zambia.
Venue(s): Pretoria, South Africa, USA and Canada
Summary of Exchange:
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) in partnership with Climate Action for Africa (CAA) jointly organised a peer-to-peer learning exchange workshop on sharing best practices on the establishment of Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI) and Measurement, Reporting, and for Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems as well as sharing technical insights, challenges, and constraints as part of the CBIT project implementation. The collaboration later extended to include the UNEP CBIT-GSP as well as the Partnership for Transparency in the Paris Agreement (PATPA). The peer-to-peer learning included the invitation of 6 African countries, in particular: Ghana, Namibia, Zambia, Kenya, Malawi as well as the Gambia sharing experience with South Africa in that regard.
Furthermore, as part of peer-to-peer exchange, South Africa intends to further visit and learn from two developed countries (USA and Canada) on how they developed and maintained as well as used their monitoring and evaluation systems for reporting and informing national policy development. South Africa intends to reach out to the United States as well as Canada for such peer-to-peer learning.
Outcomes
The peer-to-peer learning exchange was able to achieve its intended objectives of sharing good practices among countries and providing technical insights on their GHG inventory systems, specifically on how the systems can be operationalized in institutions at the national level.
Countries were able to share best practices and technical insights on the functionality of GHG inventory and how the inventories can be operationalised in institutions of CBIT projects in Anglophone African countries. Most countries learned that they need to enhance their capacities in GHG inventories, develop GHG mitigation scenarios, develop GHG improvement plans, and conduct scoping exercises for GHG inventory compilation.
Countries shared challenges and constraints in the implementation of the CBIT projects and were able to identify strategies for fast-tracking activities that are lagging on their national CBIT projects.
This peer-to-peer learning utilised learning approaches to enhance the sharing of information and exchange of knowledge and experiences among countries, thereby facilitating a learning process. CBIT-GSP facilitated the learning sessions with various interventions and approaches.
