The Board of the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund met for the first time from 26-28 March 2008, in Bonn, Germany. The Fund, which was set up under the Kyoto Protocol and approved at the Bali Climate Change Conference in December 2007, will finance adaptation projects that assist developing countries to deal with the impact of climate change.

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), highlighted that the Adaptation Fund “is a unique fund, with mitigation action paying for adaptation.” He highlighted that, unlike other funds, the Adaptation Fund is currently funded from a 2% levy on projects from the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and therefore “is not reliant on donor funding or overseas development assistance. This is the climate regime beginning to become self-financing.”
At its first meeting, the Board, chaired by Richard Muyungi (Tanzania), began its work in developing guidelines and procedures for accessing the Fund. Several specific tasks were proposed to be allocated to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), acting as Secretariat to the Adaptation Fund, including the: management of the daily operations of the Fund and reporting to the Adaptation Fund Board; serving as liaison between the Board and Parties and implementing and executing entities, as necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the Fund; ensuring the implementation of operational polices adopted by the Board through the development of a project cycle, with guidelines addressing eligibility criteria, project identification, development and implementation; operationalizing the project cycle, including review and clearance of qualified project proposals to be presented for Board approval and monitoring implementation progress and periodic reporting to the Board on portfolio performance; and coordinating the formulation and oversight of the implementation of program activities.
UNFCCC press release, 28 March 2008 | GEF press release, 28 March 2008 | Adaptation Fund website | Documents for the first Adaptation Fund Board Meeting |