In a continuation of success, the Cook Islands through its Climate Change office working in partnership with Development Coordination Division of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, have received approval from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) on October 13 for its Enhanced National Adaptation Plan (ENAP) proposal.

This most recent approval for the ENAP titled: “Increasing the Resilience of the Cook Islands through Enhancing a National Adaptation Programme” is approved for a total amount of US$3 million (NZ$4.2m), and is approved to cover; a comprehensive vulnerability adaptation analyses of all 15 Cook Islands; Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Data and Information work with ICI; Incentives to stimulate Private Sector participation in climate innovation; and development of sector based adaptation plans.

The approval is part of a string of successes by the Cook Islands receiving grant approvals from the GCF beginning in 2015 with a US$150,000 Readiness Proposal, and stepping through progressively larger steps and building local capacity and local capability with a GCF focused team.

The director of Climate Change Cook Islands, Wayne King, was happily surprised to receive the approval so quickly after only some months in development. He also expressed delight that the readiness team in the climate change office who prepared the proposal were locally based, and worked closely with the Direct Access Entity team based in Development Coordination Division, at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management (MFEM).

King said, that the experience gained by national consultants to prepare multi-million dollar proposals is showing that the approach to build local capacities for complex proposals, including financing, was paying off, with this approval.

The ENAP will complement another proposal recently submitted by the Cook Islands under the Readiness Grant funding window of the Green Climate Fund.

In all, there have been eight Readiness Grant funded proposals submitted for a GCF decision, with two of those awaiting an approval. These proposals in summary amount to over NZ$10 million going into the Cook Islands economy through payments of products and services, all with local companies and private sector expertise. Mani Mate, director of the Development Coordination Division at MFEM, highlighted that overall the amount of funds coming into the Cook Islands economy from just the GCF Readiness Grant stream, for a small economy such as ours, and particularly with the Covid-19 pandemic is significant.

- Climate Change Cook Islands