Applying Direct Access Modality for Adaptation to Climate Change

—Lessons from the Adaptation Fund Project in Senegal—

Abstract

The Adaptation Fund (AF) was established under Kyoto Protocol in 2001 in order to finance concrete adaptation projects for vulnerable areas. AF has several unique characteristics in terms of its finance modality and governance structure. “Direct Access” allows developing countries to access financial resources directly via National Implementing Entities (NIEs), which has chosen with some criteria and standards by the Adaptation Fund Board. This approach is expected to ensure country ownership of fund-recipient countries because it enables NIEs to have the responsibility for the project implementation and management. However some studies shows that the logic of DA has some merits for developing countries to implement the adaptation project effectively, it is unclear that DA works effectively for vulnerable area on the ground level.

This article examine AF project in Senegal entitled “Adaptation to Coastal Erosion in vulnerable areas” based on the field survey and discuss whether DA works effectively or not especially for vulnerable areas. The Centre de Suivi Ecologiqué was appointed as NIE in 2009 and the project was implemented from 2010 to 2014. The author conducted expert interviews for CSE, international organizations and focus group interviews for local beneficiaries few times. The result shows that it is unclear that direct access approach worked effectively for most vulnerable communities particularly in Joal. It is also important the institutional capacity of CSE should be much more strengthened in terms of the human and technical resource management, and more careful sensitization among stakeholders are required before starting each activity.