10 September 2014: The Development Bank for Latin America (CAF) hosted a workshop to strengthen the capacity of Mesoamerican and Caribbean countries to assess the financing needs associated with climate change adaptation.

The ‘Adaptation Measures and Projects: Exploring Financing Opportunities’ workshop was held from 9-10 September 2014, in Mexico City, Mexico.

In the morning of the first day, workshop participants heard a overview of climate change financing options, a presentation by a consultant of an Index for Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation, and a discussion by a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) representative of the specific state of vulnerability for countries in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. Each country then presented their existing adaptation projects and measures, as well as the status of their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

The second day opened with examples of current adaptation projects in Mexico’s Federal District and Rio Turbio basin, and projects underway by Mexico’s Mario Molina Center and the multilateral cooperation forum, the Mesoamerican Project. The workshop then explored bilateral and multilateral financing sources for adaptation projects in LAC, with specific presentations from CAF, the World Bank, the Adaptation Fund, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) and the French Development Agency (AFD). The workshop also featured a session on tools, with a presentation by UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) on its Resilience Score Card and a presentation by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on a methodology for identifying and prioritizing adaptation measures.

The workshop was attended by government officials involved in environmental protection and adaptation planning and investment and their technical staff from Belize, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago. As part of the workshop, participants broke into working groups to prioritize adaptation needs for each country based on the vulnerability analysis, and possible sources of funding for the identified needs.

The event was the second such workshop hosted by CAF. The first, co-hosted in October 2013 in Lima, Peru, by UNEP’s Regional Gateway for Technology Transfer and Climate Change Action in LAC (REGATTA), served officials from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The report of the first workshop was recently released by CAF. [CAF Press Release] [Report on the First CAF Workshop on Financing Opportunities for Adaptation (in Spanish)]