ISSUES - CAPACITY BUILDING

Capacity Building

Background

The need for capacity building to assist Parties, especially developing countries, to respond to climate change has long been recognized in the Convention’s work on such issues as technology transfer, national communications and funding. Under the Convention, the SBI is charged with providing advice on "ways and means of supporting endogenous capacity building in developing countries" (Article 9), while the Kyoto Protocol commits Parties to cooperating in, and promoting, "…the strengthening of national capacity building…"( (PDF)

Article 10(e)). Capacity building cuts across many of the issues under consideration in the climate change process, and has featured in several COP decisions. The issue of capacity building, however, was first considered as a separate agenda item only at COP 5 (Bonn, October/November 1999).

Through its decisions (PDF)

10/CP.5 and (PDF)

11/CP.5, COP 5 launched a process to address capacity building in an integrated manner, resulting in frameworks for capacity building being agreed at COP 7 (Marrakech, November/December 2001) for developing countries and countries with economies in transition (EITs) in decisions (PDF)

2/CP.7 and (PDF)

3/CP.7 respectively. These frameworks were intended to serve as a guide for the climate change capacity building activities of the GEF and other funding bodies. more >>

Capacity-building in developing countries

Comprehensive review

A first comprehensive review of the framework was conducted at COP 10 in 2004, and identified key factors that should be taken into account to increase effectiveness of this framework (decision 2/CP.10).
A second comprehensive review of the implementation of the capacity-building framework in developing countries was initiated at SBI 28 (June 2008) and should be completed by COP 15 (December 2008). The review is also applicable for capacity-building under the Kyoto Protocol. The terms of reference for the review can be found in the annex IV to SBI 28 conclusions.
Parties are invited to provide submissions by 13 February 2009 on any additional or updated information and views that maybe relevant to the completion of the second comprehensive review of the framework.

Monitoring and evaluating capacity-building

Expert workshop on monitoring and evaluating capacity building activities took place on 5-6 November 2007 in Antigua and Barbuda.
Meeting on experiences with performance indicators for monitoring and evaluation of capacity-building in developing countries will be held on 6-7 November 2008 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Compilation of capacity-building needs and activities, prepared by the secretariat for the regular monitoring of the implementation of the framework.

Capacity-building in countries with economies in transition

A first comprehensive review of the framework was conducted at COP 10 in 2004, and identified key factors that should be taken into account to increase effectiveness of this framework (decision 3/CP.10).
A second comprehensive review took place in 2007 at SBI 27. The SBI agreed ( FCCC/SBI/2007/34, para. 81-88 and para. 117-128) that the scope of needs as listed in the framework for capacity building in EIT countries is still relevant, and decided to review status of its implementation at SBI 36.
Compilation of capacity-building activities in EITs, prepared by the secretariat for the second comprehensive review.

Last modified: 3 November 2008