ECCM Facility: Supporting the Delegation of the EU to Haiti in the mainstreaming of environment and climate change

Resilience to climate hazards and natural disasters, together with accelerated environmental degradation, are major concerns in Haiti. A mission to this country, carried out in the month of June 2016, was fielded to support the EU Delegation and Haitian authorities with mainstreaming environment and climate change into ongoing and planned development projects, and to seize the associated opportunities in terms of human and social development.

An expert from the Environment and Climate Change Mainstreaming Facility (ECCM) led a series of sessions for analysis and discussion on ways to:

• practically integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change into the EU supported programme; 
• quantify the contribution of the various interventions to the EU commitments on climate funding; 
• ensure monitoring and follow-up of the environmental and climate change mainstreaming efforts.

During the meetings, Project Managers had an opportunity to discuss and review the contents of the Action Documents under preparation. It was found that most interventions in Haiti had climate-relevant objectives; this included not only actions related to water, food security and urban resilience – which are known to be sensitive to climate change – but also those associated with support to civil society and government institutions.

Practical suggestions were made to improve the integration of environmental and climate change concerns in all relevant projects. Particular attention was given to activities aimed at the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems, the improvement of access to water, and to soil and forest management.

“We now have the necessary tools to improve integration of environment and climate change in our programmes and hope to ensure adequate monitoring and follow-up in collaboration with our partners”, said Silvia Severi, Head of Rural Development, Food Security, Environment and Regional Integration in the EU Delegation to Haiti  , after finalising the review work.

The ECCM Facility support

The overall objective of the Environment and Climate Change Mainstreaming Facility (ECCM) is to improve the effectiveness of EU interventions that have effects on or are affected by environment and climate change, throughout EU thematic and geographic programmes, thereby contributing to poverty eradication, sustainable development and green growth. To this end, it provides training and capacity building support to EU and partner country staff. 

The Facility also systematically provides inputs into the Quality Support Groups (QSG) process from an environment, climate change and biodiversity perspective. Priority sectors are:

1. agriculture, food and nutrition security and rural development; 
2. economic development, including employment, private sector development and sustainable consumption and production; 
3. energy; 
4. transport and infrastructure, including urban planning, post-disaster reconstruction, and information and communication technologies; and 
5. water, sanitation and waste management.

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ECC Mainstreaming Guidelines and sector notes are available at: Capacity4dev website

DEVCO C2 and C6 ECCM Facility Support Service at: EuropeAid-C2-MAINSTREAMING@ec.europa.eu  

List of projects in Haiti: http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/haiti/projects/list_of_projects/projects_fr.htm