The UN Capital Development Fund’s Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) has made a continued commitment to its efforts in Bhutan. The programme, which works in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, has recently assisted independent evaluators on a field mission to Bhutan for a mid-term evaluation of the programme at the global level.

LoCAL’s goal in Bhutan is to improve the adaptive capacity and resilience of local communities to climate change, through a system of performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) to local governments.

A team of two evaluators, Jon Garcia and Bishwa Paudyal from Baastel, a Canada-based consulting firm, were in Bhutan from the 4^th to the 9^th of June, 2017 as a part of their field mission for the evaluation. The field mission consisted of bilateral meetings with officials of the Gross National Happiness Commission, National Environment Commission, Department of Local Governance, Department of National Budget and UNDP Bhutan Country Office, and visits to LoCAL project sites in Daga and Phangyuel gewogs in Wangdue Phodrang dzongkhag.

In addition, the visiting evaluators made courtesy calls on the Director General of the Department of Local Governance, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP Bhutan, and the Officiating Dzongdag (District Governor) of Wangdue Phodrang dzongkhag. Moreover, they met with local authorities to better understand LoCAL’s impact in the landlocked country.

Project site visits included Taksha-Silli farm road and Gebekha farm road in Daga gewog, and Yuebaam and Pechhu irrigation channels, and Genkha rural water supply scheme in Phangyuel gewog. The evaluators interviewed the dzongkhag (district) administration officials and the gewog (county) administration officials, and also had focused group discussions with men and women beneficiary groups separately.

The mid-term evaluation includes field missions to Niger, Bhutan and Cambodia. The field mission to Niger was conducted in April 2017. The mission to Cambodia is scheduled for July 2017.

The LoCAL programme began support to community-level climate change adaptation investments through performance-based grant system to local governments in Bhutan in 2011. Its strategy is to assist local governments in implementing block grants allocated for improving local-level infrastructure and in providing public services, while offering training and capacity development for local personnel and officials. LoCAL in Bhutan is embedded in the Local Governance Sustainable Development Programme, managed by the Department of Local Governance under the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs.

Fakri Karim, Programme Manager of LoCAL, explains: “As one of the first countries using the PBCRG mechanism, experiences and lessons learned from Bhutan are very important for this mid-term evaluation. Not only to see how relevant and effective the mechanism is in increasing the local government’s capacity to deliver the resilience infrastructure to increase resilience, but also to show how the PBCRG mechanism has been effectively channeling the fund to increase resilience at local level. Those experiences and lessons will also help to improve the LoCAL-PBCRG as a global mechanism to support other local governments.”

It is currently active in six gewogs, namely Daga, Phangyuel and Phobji gewogs in Wangduephodrang dzongkhag and Nangkhor, Ngangla and Phangkhar gewogs in Zhemgang dzongkhag.

LoCAL serves as a mechanism to integrate climate change adaption into local governments’ planning and budgeting systems, increase awareness of and response to climate change at the local level, and increase the amount of finance available to local governments for climate change adaption.

For more information, please contact:

Fakri Karim
fakri.karim@uncdf.org
Programme Manager of LoCAL
Twitter: @Fakri_Karim