UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 (NNN-NEPALNEWS) – More than 39 million U.S. dollars in funding was approved on Wednesday, for a project that will build resilience and mitigate the effects of climate change, benefiting nearly one million Nepalis, the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF) said.
Co-funding the initiative, Nepal’s Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE), is adding another eight million U.S. dollars, for a total of more than 47 million U.S. dollars, which will see the project to fruition over the course of seven years, GCF said.
Communities in the Churia hills region, the southernmost range of the Himalayan foothills, running east-west through Nepal, will be targeted, as it provides vital ecosystem functions to the heavily-populated plains downstream, where the most fertile agricultural land is located.
“This major GCF contribution will benefit more than 200,000 households in the Churia hills,” said Somsak Pipoppinyo, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative to Nepal, noting that, it would help rural families to “become more resilient to the changing environment, in which they find themselves.”
“It will also help them adapt to, and mitigate the effects of climate and extreme weather events, in the years to come,” added Pipoppinyo.
Kailash Pokharel of the Ministry of Finance, underscored the region as “a national priority critical to Nepal’s food security and climate change policy,” and pledged to ensure the project “brings transformation to grassroots communities” and enhances climate resilience. And its long-term sustainability will rely on building both individual and institutional capacity at all levels, according to the press release.
“The project will work with both government and communities to coordinate actions,” said Ben Vickers, FAO’s lead technical officer. “We anticipate these actions will deliver average annual emission reductions of nearly half-a-million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.”– NNN-NEPALNEWS
