3 April 2009: The Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) convened for its fifth meeting from 24-27 March 2009, in Bonn, Germany, during which Jan Cedergren (Sweden) was elected Chair and Farrukh Iqbal Khan (Pakistan) was elected Vice-Chair. The Board also considered a number of issues to ensure that the Fund can start processing, and subsequently fund, adaptation projects and programmes.

During the four-day meeting, the AFB agreed on operational policies and guidelines for parties to access resources from the Adaptation Fund, which are based on the strategic priorities, policies and guidelines of the Adaptation Fund adopted by the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, held in Poznań, Poland, in December 2008. The Board also agreed to establish two committees – on finance and ethics and on projects and programmes – to support the work of the AFB. The committees’ specific terms of reference and their budgets will be considered at the AFB’s next meeting in June. Some progress was also reported on a process of selecting a host country to confer the AFB with legal capacity so that it can perform its functions with regard to direct access of parties. Finally, the AFB agreed to its meeting schedule in 2009, and its sixth meeting will take place on 15-17 June 2009, at the same venue.
The Adaptation Fund was established by the parties to the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Fund will be financed with 2% of the Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) issued for projects of the Clean Development Mechanism and with funds from other sources. IISD RS Sources. [Adaptation Fund website] [Meeting documents] [GEF press release]