Strengthening Governance of Climate Change Finance

The echo of climate change has been there since a decade, however, the National Climate Change Policy and an implementation framework was developed in 2012. The presence of Climate Change Ministry, the Federal government has to strengthen the institutions those are major stakeholders in budgetary reform. Furthermore, the Vision 2025 provides a comprehensive foundation to integrate climate change budgeting into national development planning. Pakistan has been working on reforming the budgeting through a medium term budgetary framework (MTBF) since 2003. The Federal Government coordinates with provinces through its Climate Change Ministry. To understand the situation of public expenditure on Climate Change a “Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review” (CPEIR) was carried out in 2015 and the following recommendations were suggested:

Integrating Climate Change into the budgetary and planning processes
Strengthening the climate finance institutional framework
Institutional strengthening of Climate Change-relevant entities M&E of Climate Change-relevant work
Sensitize policy-makers and the public to the need for Climate Change investment

The CPNE understands the extensiveness and complexity of this important issue of Climate Change Finance. Pakistan is one of the most affected countries and evidences the current changes in weather configuration in the region. The CPNE recognizes the potential of mainstream climate finance and strengthen the institutions involved in planning, budgeting and implementing climate change actions and will iterate effective coordination among them (Ministry of Climate Change, Planning Commission, Controller General of Accounts and National Disaster Management Authority/ Provincial Disaster Management Authorities).
The CPNE is the implementing partner of Strengthening Governance of Climate Change Finance, implemented by UNDP Bangkok Region. It’s a regional project and making efforts to realize the following objectives:

Climate Change is integrated into budget formulation at national and sub-national levels
Strengthened institutions track and report on climate change expenditures as part of the budget process at national and sub-national levels
Knowledge effectively shared across countries of the region as well as with key international policy process related to climate finance

CPNE as media partner is intended to educate public about climate change finance and the importance of the investment in climate change. The public opinion pushes the message across to the politicians who can then follow up the climate agenda in parliament and provincial assembly. The media would have access to a compilation of resources for concrete and solid reporting on climate finance. This would strengthen their capacities to use the information and make it available in the public domain, through public dialogues and debates, as well as visibility in the print media. Specifically the following activities shall be performed:

Activities

This is a multi-stakeholders’ project and number of activities will have to implement to create evidences for seriousness regarding Climate Change Finance. Major activities are given below:

Focus Group Discussions (FGDs):

Three Focus Group Discussions organized in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad to gauge existing knowledge and level of understanding on climate change public expenditure and public awareness of the participants in three focus group discussions. It had been through provoking and most of the participants from number of media organizations took part. The key points have been mentioned below:

 

# Lahore Islamabad Karachi
1 The Media practitioners need detailed and consecutive orientation/capacity building about climate change finance. The participants were progressive and diversified seem to contribute for the cause of climate change. Some of the participants were aware about climate change finance. Constructive and committed media leadership to climate change issues.
Damage due to climate change can be reduced by effective management of resources and good governance.
2 Formal and effective coordination is required among editors, journalists, media practitioners (environment beat) and related government departments. It’s a matter of provinces and the provincial governments must take serious action in coordination with climate change ministry. The ministry can help to develop policy and frame work at provincial level. IEC materials need to be develop in Urdu, English and local languages.
A book or guidelines need to developed for media practitioners on the climate change issues, its impact, and mitigation. A coordination group must be established to carry forward this serious issue and make aware all stakeholders as mentioned in the report.
3 Need to develop a collective resource pool and ensure data availability on the climate change. There is a need to identify serious writers/reports and editors who can deal with environment/ finance/ development project by government for their orientation and capacity building. Newspaper, TV channel and magazine must assign professional and dedicated staff for climate change. The CPNE or other media organizations/ associations may organize training courses/ orientation sessions for the dedicated staff.
4 Develop guidelines especially for new comers to understand keywords or terminologies used in climate change reporting. Why Pakistan is affected by climate change while its contribution in greenhouse gas emissions is low? This was raised while discussing who can finance the activities to mitigate the climate issues. The climate change affect every human being, therefore, CPNE must enhance awareness campaign in collaboration with UNDP to schools, colleges, and universities.
5 Identify initiatives that make climate change finance more interesting and important to readers and engage all stakeholders. The media practitioners can play vital role in managing, mitigating and adapting to climate change by raising awareness, understanding and reporting the current developments. They could help in identifying the gaps and describe the trend of expenditures toward the climate change finance. Climate change is a reality and it is unavoidable, therefore journalists should play the role of the “change maker.”
Climate change is a much more complex & holistic than just economic, social & political issues, electronic media should come forward because it known as the “opinion maker.”
CPNE with help of UNDP should organize regional forums for experience sharing.
Writing case studies by engaging university students would be encouraging and land mark for new initiatives.

Guide Book:

Despite its importance climate change is one of the more underreported topics in Pakistan. This is, in part, due to lack of awareness and information about the global and national climate effort. This guidebook is meant to serve as a resource and toolkit for the Pakistani media and journalists on climate change and climate change finance.
The contents of this guidebook are meant to inform, inspire and equip you for effective reporting. Moreover, this guidebook is the culmination of an effort to promote voices for equitable allocation and judicious accountability of Climate Change Finance (CCF) at the local and national level in Pakistan. This document is the first of its kind in Pakistan and we hope that it will serve as an effective resource for you to understand, identify and report on climate change and climate change finance related issues in Pakistan. [download]
The committee comprises four members;

The second draft of the guidebook is ready and hopefully the final drat will be available end of the next month. Once the guidebook completed the educational seminars will be conducted.

Climate Smart Reporting – Seminar Report:

The CPNE organized the two seminars for sharing of information and progress with larger audiences, including editors, civil society organizations, communication professionals and youth on areas of mutual interest in relation to climate change finance in Karachi & Lahore in August 2017. [download]

Best Story Prize Competition Award:

To engage editors/journalists/youth for wider impact of climate change finance and made it an integral part into budget formulation, the CPNE will organize a “Best story” prize competition as a means to improve the quantity and quality of coverage of climate change finance. Cash prizes of up till Rs 50,000/ each will be awarded to the nine writers of the stories.

Information Educational Communication materials developed and will be shared in all events of the project. This will help to understand the climate change finance issues and use it as tool for lobbying among the media persons.