MONITORING (SW) – United Nations agencies are trying to unlock key climate financing for Afghanistan, one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change which has not received approval for any fresh such funds since the 2021 the Islamic Emirate takeover, two U.N. officials told Reuters.
Plagued by drought and deadly floods, Afghanistan has been unable to access U.N. climate funds due to political and procedural issues in more than three years now.
However, with the population growing more desperate as climate woes stack up, U.N. agencies are hoping to unseal project financing for the fragile country to boost its resilience.
If successful, this would be the first time new international climate finance would flow into the arid, mountainous nation in three years.
“There are no climate sceptics in Afghanistan,” said Dick Trenchard, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) country director for Afghanistan. “You see the impact of climate change and its environmental effects everywhere you go.”
Two U.N. agencies are currently drawing together proposals they hope to submit next year to shore up nearly $19 million in financing from the U.N’s Global Environment Facility (GEF), part of the financial mechanism of the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change.
These include the FAO, which hopes to get support for a project costing $10 million that would improve rangeland, forest and watershed management across up to four provinces in Afghanistan, while avoiding giving money directly to the de-facto government authorities.
The U.N. Development Programme, meanwhile, hopes to secure $8.9 million to improve the resilience of rural communities where livelihoods are threatened by increasingly erratic weather patterns, the agency told Reuters. If that goes ahead, it plans to seek another $20 million project.
“We’re in conversations with the GEF, the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund – all these major climate financing bodies – to reopen the pipeline and get resources into the country, again, bypassing the de-facto authorities,” said Stephen Rodriques, UNDP resident representative for Afghanistan.
National governments often work alongside accredited agencies to implement projects that have received U.N. climate funds. But because the Islamic Emirate government is not recognised by U.N. member states, U.N. agencies would both make the request and serve as the on-the-ground partner to carry out the project.
The Islamic Emirate officials have yet to comment in this regard.
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