UNDP chief: We must leverage financial innovation to back mitigation, adaptation efforts
Resident Representative in Egypt of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Alessandro Fracassetti said “We ...
UNDP chief: We must leverage financial innovation to back mitigation, adaptation efforts
Resident Representative in Egypt of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Alessandro Fracassetti said “We must leverage financial innovation to support both mitigation and adaptation efforts, ensuring sustainable growth.”
According to UNCTAD, 70% of public climate finance is in the form of debt, and it primarily goes towards mitigation, he noted at the Panel on Innovation and Financing Resilient Solutions for Water Security Cairo Water Week.
“To scale up climate finance for resilience, we must help countries in the region; establish new policies and institutions that de-risk private investments, advance strategies such as climate debt swaps and payments for ecosystem services, and provide access to cutting-edge climate adaptation technologies.
He highlighted the importance of ensuring that climate finance reaches the most vulnerable communities.
The UNDP is committed to aligning climate and development financing for water security with the needs of our partner governments in the region, he said.
Water is central to development, and UNDP’s engagement spans the full range of water resource challenges, he highlighted.
“We are actively involved in applied water management across the Sustainable Development Goals, in portfolios as diverse as Nature, Climate, Energy, Waste, Inclusive Growth, and Disaster Risk Reduction,” he asserted.
The UNDP also serves as the custodian of the largest transboundary water portfolio in the UN system. “We are also a key contributor to the Water Action Agenda and the Water Action Decade (2018-2028), focusing on integrated water management through three critical pillars: water access, water security, and water quality,” he added.
“Our long-standing expertise in the water sector allows us to combine best practices with innovative approaches to sustainable and integrated water resource management,” he said.
“We are proud to have supported the COP27 Presidency through a multi-donor project, funded by the European Union, the Governments of Denmark and Switzerland,” he highlighted.
“This project helped launch several initiatives, including the AWARe initiative, which UNDP is committed to supporting, particularly in the promotion of climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies related to water management,” he added.
In the current context of water scarcity, climate change adaptation requires substantial support, he said, adding that one of the key challenges in the region is ensuring access to affordable climate change adaptation technologies.
Collective efforts are needed to reduce the costs of these technologies, enabling farmers to adopt alternative water resource systems and sustainable agricultural practices that produce more with less fresh water, he said, stressing that this is essential to the transition towards a low-carbon economy.
اترك تعليقا