Climate resilience and low carbon strategies in the Mekong

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) is a natural economic area bound together by the Mekong River, covering 2.6 million square kilometers and a combined population of around 326 million. The GMS countries are Cambodia, the People's Republic of China (Yunnan Province and Guangxi), Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

In 1992, the six countries entered into the GMS Economic Cooperation Program, which was designed to enhance economic relations among the countries. NDF will in partnership with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) finance a project that will assist countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) to develop tools, capacity, and processes that will enhance their ability to adapt to climate change in an efficient and equitable manner.The NDF support will furthermore develop Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA), test low carbon interventions in the transport and energy sectors, and strengthen institutional capacity to monitor, report, and verify CO2 emission reductions.

The NDF support will be part of the GMS Core Environment Program and Biodiversity Conservation Initiative, which is financed by Finland, Sweden, ADB and GEF. The project will combine adaptation and mitigation activities. Adaptation will focus on reducing climate risks through climate modelling, risk assessment methods, and identification of adaptation interventions. The work will be done with national and local institutions and focus will be on supporting communities to respond to natural disasters and adapt to a changing climate. Pilot projects for early warning systems and local finance mechanisms (e.g. risk insurance) will be developed in communities living in biodiversity conservation corridor areas. The planned mitigation activities will support the GMS countries to develop mitigation actions by strengthening policy responses, establishing or improving monitoring systems, and testing on-the-ground actions. “The GMS Core Environment Program and Biodiversity Conservation Initiative will follow-up on earlier support by Denmark, Finland and Sweden to conservation of key biodiversity areas and biological corridors in the Mekong region.

In the past two decades, Nordic support to projects and to organizations such as IUCN, BirdLife and WWF has helped consolidate individual protected areas in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam,” says NDF Country Program Manager Emeli Möller , who adds that “The NDF support will facilitate concrete climate change adaptation measures in communities located inside or around many of these same protected areas and biodiversity corridors.”  NDF support will be joint co-financing with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which will employ consultancy firms and/or individual consultants to carry out the activities of the project.

ADB procurement rules will be followed in the procurement of consulting services. Consulting opportunities related to this project will be published simultaneously on the webpages of NDF and the ADB.