24 May 2012: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Risoe Centre on Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development (URC) has released the fourth volume of its Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) Newsletter, which features articles on: TNA training and capacity building activities; and country experiences from Costa Rica, Lebanon, Mauritius and the Dominican Republic.

The TNA project is implemented by UNEP and the URC on behalf of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It provides targeted technical and methodological support to 36 countries in conducting TNAs.

The newsletter includes a TNA status update, which indicates that training workshops were conducted in February 2012 for second round countries, bringing to a close the collective training programme of the project. It further notes that any further capacity building will take the form of implementation-focused sessions delivered on request to country teams whenever feasible.

The newsletter describes the ‘Barrier Analysis, Enabling Environment and Development of Technology Actions Plans’ workshops held in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The workshops focused on identifying: barriers and inefficiencies using market mapping and other tools; measures to overcome the barriers and inefficiencies for implementing selected technologies; and activities to accelerate technology deployments.

The newsletter also features articles on: the TNA process in Costa Rica and its contribution to the design and structure of its sectoral Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs); the engagement of stakeholders in the TNA process in Lebanon; lessons from the TNA experience in Mauritius on ensuring multi-stakeholder commitment at all levels; and the importance of the Dominican Republic’s TNA in addressing the cause and effect of climate change. [Publication: UNEP Risoe TNA Newsletter Volume 4]