The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) – Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) EbA project will be hosting a project Closing Symposium in Dominica from 3 – 5 July. This will be the first and only opportunity that the core project stakeholders and beneficiaries from Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Tobago, including EbA technical partner IAMovement will meet together, since the IICA-CBF Grant Agreement was signed on 17 March 2020. This project start date coincided with the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, which led to the subsequent closing of borders, suspension of travel and gatherings. Built on the transfer of practical skills for climate action to address soil erosion and slope stabilization through nature-based solutions, the COVID-19 pandemic definitely impacted the project’s ability for in-country, face-to-face engagement, mobilization, training and knowledge transfer with the stakeholders in the project’s rural communities in these four countries throughout its first full year.
This IICA-CBF EbA project has been a living laboratory of how difficult development projects can be. However, if done properly, with the ultimate beneficiaries in mind, and allowed time to rebound from disruptions and flexibility to course correct, it has also shown that some great things can result, even if considered small in a global scale. With the absolute and sterling 100% investment in time, effort, technical and management immersion and collaboration from the IICA-ECS team with the project PMU, we collectively agree that this project has made some fundamental contributions to learnings in its core areas.
The Closing Symposium will explore the ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘what next’ with respect to the project’s two mutually-reinforcing climate action principles and imperatives:- ‘for the planet’, using the deep-rooted vetiver grass as a natural soil erosion control measure, and ‘for the people’, using the same grass to simultaneously provide raw material (harvested leaves and roots) to create artisanal home, décor, bath and body products as a means of sustainable livelihoods. The main themes for the panels, with representation from project beneficiaries, are:
• Experiences and Lessons in Vetiver as an EbA-NbS
• Expectations and experiences with community-based/led climate action
• Building sustainable livelihoods and green business linked to NbS climate action
• Mainstreaming EbA/NbS climate action – what next after projects end
The issue of mainstreaming is of particular importance, and a central requirement to sustain benefits and impact beyond projects. The IICA-CBF EbA project is a sub-project of the Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) Facility. The EbA Facility is itself a project, of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) with support from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), set up as a sinking fund to award grants between period 2018 to 2022 for actions across the Caribbean to support climate change adaptation and poverty alleviation through biodiversity conservation and ecosystems management. The EbA Facility project is an important part of the German government’s international climate finance commitment. It is managed by Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF), which provided a grant to IICA under its first call for proposals in late 2018-2019, to implement this EbA project.