The workshop on National Climate Change Reporting and Regional Networking is one of the approaches that have been adopted by UN Environment’s Enabling Activities project team of the Climate Change Mitigation unit and UNEP/UNDP Global Support Programme (GSP) team in trying to overcome the barriers of timely submission of climate change reports by developing countries. This workshop was held from 9th to 12th April 2019 at The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in Bangkok, Thailand. This was the third workshop in a series of workshops that have so far been organized on National Climate Change Reporting and Regional Networking by UN Environment team. The other two workshops organized in 2018 covered East and Southern Africa region as well as North, Central and West Africa region. Lessons learnt and gaps identified during the National Communications (NCs) and Biennial Update Reports (BURs) processes have been instrumental in understanding the underlying challenges that contribute to delays in report submission and limited transparency of submitted reports.
A total of 61 participants, mainly national project coordinators and finance persons involved in the NC and BUR reporting processes from 40 countries in Asia, the Pacific Islands and Balkan attended the workshop. The countries represented from these regions included: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, China, Cooks Island, Fiji, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.
The main objective of the workshop was to train national project coordinators and finance personnel on technical and financial aspects regarding the preparation and management of NC/BUR projects; Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) framework and consensus building on the possibility of MRV regional networks. The long term expected result of the workshop was to improve national climate change reports from developing countries. The workshop therefore aimed to help in addressing challenges faced by most countries in meeting the national climate change reporting requirements in a timely, transparent and sustainable manner.
