By Isatou jawara
The Minister of Environment, Climate Change and natural resources Hon Lamin Dibba said since the ratification of Kyoto protocol The Gambia has received a significant volume of international financial support mainly in the form of grants to help improve its capacity to adapt to the changing climate.
The Minister mentioned this at the National Validation Workshop for the strategic programme on climate resilience.
He said a total of $52,822,672 funding was received to implement various climate change projects which were accessible through the Least Development Country Fund (LDCF). Minister also mentioned the recent Green Climate Fund (GCF), both of which are funding mechanisms under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
He said funding has been in the form of projects such as the Coastal Resilience Project, Climate Change Early Warning Project, and the Agricultural Adaptation projects. .
“As part of our quest to attract further climate finance that can be manifested into tangible projects, The Gambia last year applied to the World Bank Climate Invest Funds (CIF) pilot programme and was selected as one of the 6 pilot countries to implement the programme. A grant sum of 1.5 million was made available to the Government of the Gambia to prepare a strategic programme for climate resilience (SPCR)”he added.
“The Gambia is widely known, acknowledged as one of the most vulnerable countries in Africa to climate change evidenced by the fact that the country has experienced drought and related crop failures and severe floods over the past decade. Today, the Gambia is already facing severe threat to its entire coastline including the Capital city Banjul from coastal erosion,” he said.
