Malawi NAS - report and comments on JPA principle E and on the assessment tool

PeterWith

CISONECC in Malawi was the first network in Southern Voices submitting a national adaptation status report - received by Secretariat in August 2014.

In this connection CISIONECC included observations and comments to the Secretariat - which we here share in the discussion forum.

This regards the following - which you can see below:

1) A comment to principle ‘E’ of the JPA which states that ‘The resilience of women and men who are most vulnerable to climate change is built.’ and
2) An advise regarding the assessment tool version 1.0 - Adequate resources are made available for raising public awareness and education about climate change, This comment has been taken in account in the upgrading of the assessment tool to a version 1.1

CIOSNECC would like to use this opportunity to convey particular submissions that have emerged in the course of understanding JPA and completing the status report as the network continues to contribute to the JPA Process as a whole.

The first one relates to Principle ‘E’ of the JPA which states that ‘The resilience of women and men who are most vulnerable to climate change is built.’ CISONECC is of the view that rather than singling out one element of vulnerability which is the differentiated nature of vulnerability and required responses with respect to gender, the principle suffers from excluding other forms of vulnerability such as the youth, the elderly and people with disabilities. Accordingly, CISONECC suggests that the principle should read ‘The resilience of those who are most vulnerable to climate change is built.’ Thus instead of specifying vulnerability in the principle, the listing of the various types of vulnerability should be part of the criteria.

Secondly, CISONECC has a specific comment that relates to the assessment tool. CISONECC was aware that networks are expected to apply the tool in ways that fit their countries best. However, the network found that formulations of the descriptions of the rating scale resonate quite well with the Malawian context. For that reason, CISONECC decided to use the tool in its entirety. In the process of going by the formulation of the rating descriptions, however, CISONECC grappled with the fact that contrary to the explanation of the rating scale which indicates that ‘0’ represents that no start has been made and ‘3’ that the criteria has been substantially achieved, the formulation of each description of the rating for each criteria does not represents progression in one parameter of measurement in some cases. The example below which relates to the second criteria of Principle F (There is a balance between the investment in physical infrastructure and the building of skills and capacities) illustrates this mismatch:

Criteria Rating scale
2. Adequate resources are made available for raising public awareness and education about climate change 0. There is no climate change adaptation communications plan
1. Climate change education is included in school curriculum
2. Up-to-date messages for climate change awareness form a regular part of public information programmes
3. Comprehensive programme of climate change information to build knowledge among different audiences is set up

In this example, the scale of 1 (having climate change education in school curriculum) does not entail progress in from the ‘0’ situation where there was no climate change communication plan. This is because having climate change education in the school curriculum does not necessarily presuppose existence of a communication plan. This is just one but not the only example where such difficulties were encountered in completing the status report. CISONECC hopes that this learning will inform further refinement of the assessment tool.





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