Environment ministry workshop to provide training to states

The Environment Ministry held a two-day consultation to provide hands-on training to states for submitting proposals for accessing climate change finance.
"The workshop has been organised with a view to provide hands-on training to state government officials for formulating and submitting proposals for accessing climate change finance under the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Adaptation Fund Board (AFB).
"In addition to providing an overview of the national policy framework, the workshop gave a platform to deliberate upon and identify avenues for mainstreaming climate change concerns into development planning at the state level and explore possibilities of sharing budgetary resources to support adaptation and mitigation activities," an official statement said.

The statement said that the consultation was to support state governments to proactively pursue climate change adaptation, mitigation and building their capacity for accessing climate change finance from domestic and international sources.
The two-day workshop was organized in Lucknow on June 27-28 in collaboration with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
Union Environment Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha said that states are important partners for implementing the climate change vision of the country and have to play a proactive role in project development and implementation.

He further emphasized that climate change issues cannot be seen in isolation and require effective stakeholder engagement to pursue its goals and support the long term implementation of climate change policies.

Till date, 12 projects submitted by state governments have been approved under NAFCC at a total cost of Rs 235.17 crore.
"At the end of the workshop, the participants acquired the knowledge and expertise for preparing good quality adaptation and mitigation projects for NAFCC and GCF for their respective states which is to be submitted by July 15, 2016," the statement said.