By Maimuma Sey-Jawo
The Ministry of Environment, Climatic Change and Natural Resources (MECCNAR) and the World Food (WFP) on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in relation to the successful awarding of the Rural Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resilience project (RICAR) at a tune of $10million.
The 5 years project to the Gambian is donated by the Adaptation Fund, and implementation will start March 2022 to February 2027 and it will be implemented by WFP and Ministry of Environment Climatic Change and Natural Resources which is focusing mainly on adaptation, climate risk management, and market access while targeting Central River and Upper River Regions of the country.
The Objective of the project is to enhance adaptive capacity of rural populations in The Gambia through support to climate-resilient and diversified livelihoods and the aim is to develop knowledge and awareness to underpin evidence-based resilience building and adaptation activities, particularly for women and youths among other things.
Speaking at the signing ceremony of the MoU held at Ministry of Environment, the WFP Country Director, Yasuhiro Tsumura, commended The Gambia on being the only country in the world which is “Paris Climate Climatic Compatible”, with plants for keeping to the goal of limiting global heating to 2.5c about pre-industrial levels by 2100.
He said it is a very interesting project and well designed, through the long process since 2019, MECCNAR and WFP worked side by side to develop the project.
He added that among the components of the project is to strengthen the resilience of the communities and households improving infrastructures against climate shocks and increasing the productive capacities despite these shocks
He continued that “The project will also support the mechanism to transfer climate related risks through weather insurance and it will also develop a knowledge management system and strengthen the evidence base to clearly show the impacts of resilience building and climate adaptation support.”
On his part, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Environment Climatic Change and Natural Resources (MECCNAR), Momodou Mbye Jabang, welcomed the move and thanked WFP for the partnership.
He said the project was approved by the AF Board on 3rd May, 2021 and the AF Board decided to grant WFP the authorization to manage the RICAR project and select the executing entities of this RICAR project. He said the targeted groups are small holder farmers and other vulnerable rural groups who are already at risk from climate variability and change, with an emphasis on women and youths
He said the project will start around the March 2022 and end at February 2027 and it is expected to increase adaptive capacity and resilience of targeted communities through concrete adaptation and diversified livelihoods (6,520,390). He said women and youth are incentivized to become change agents (125,000).
