Last month, the President of the Dominican Republic emitted a Decree to create and implement a national Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. The decree also includes guidelines for the registration of climate actions, for both mitigation of GHG emissions as well as adaptation measures, and the tracking of financial flows and investments as part of an enhanced transparency framework.

The Decree, which was developed and submitted as part of the ICAT Phase I project, will benefit the Dominican Republic on multiple fronts. By having such a legal framework in place, it will enable the Dominican Republic to comply with the requirements established under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. It will allow the country to collect reliable and consistent data that will inform policymakers and national public authorities, enabling them to track progress of national climate change policies, including the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

“The framework enables the country to be in compliance with the international regulations, but also strengthens the inter-institutional climate governance and responds to the implementation of the national climate change policy established, also by decree, since 2015” stated Federico Grullón, Head of the Mitigation Department at the National Council for Climate Change.

Of particular importance to the overall operation and success of any national MRV system is the institutional arrangements in place. To this end, the Decree clearly lays out the roles and responsibilities of the various ministries and other public instances across the government, ensuring a constant flow of information between and within the relevant public and private actors.

Although the MRV system will be coordinated by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL), the roles and responsibilities appear to be well understood among the relevant stakeholders in the country, in part, as a result of the ICAT project. According to Grullón, the ICAT project engaged stakeholders across different levels of government, civil society and the private sector, sensitising them to MRV systems. The Head of Mitigation also states that “through various workshops, national stakeholders were able to increase their understanding of issues related to climate action transparency which created a greater sense of national ownership and built momentum for the adoption of a national MRV system”.

Alan Ramírez, Technical Director of the CNCCMDL, complements this further by explaining that a major contributor to the success of the ICAT Phase I project was “the increased awareness and momentum around transparency that the ICAT project helped to generate among key institutions in the Dominican Republic”.

How did we get here?

Together with CNCCMDL and UNEP DTU Partnership, the ICAT Phase I project set out to establish a legal framework that specifies and guides the management of a national MRV system to meet the objectives of Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. This legal framework covers aspects such as data collection, data management and related institutional arrangements.

Through a rigorous participatory process, the ICAT Phase I project carried out a gap and barrier analysis of the country’s current institutional arrangements, developed a technical report proposing a national MRV system to inform the Decree, and proposed the Decree that was submitted to the country’s Presidency.

What comes next?

Based on the successful results achieved in the first phase and as per the request from the national government of the Dominican Republic, a second phase project with ICAT will be undertaken. A second phase project will provide continuity to the progress seen so far and directly support the implementation of the national MRV system. To do this, ICAT will continue to work with CNCCMDL to strengthen the capacities of the various entities involved in operating the national MRV system, establish clear linkages between the MRV system and subnational and non-state actions and sustainable development, and systematise the entire MRV system through a toolbox that will provide ongoing support to over 60 institutions, ensuring the long-term viability of the country’s national transparency framework.

What is most promising, according to Max Puig, Executive Vice President of the CNCCMDL is the commitment and political will that the Dominican Government is showing towards climate action and climate transparency. This ensures that the engagement starts from the head of state and will permeate through the whole public system. Also, the response and support received by the private sector and civil society has been completely aligned with the establishment of this legal framework.

For more information about ICAT’s work in the Dominican Republic, please contact Denis Desgain at UNEP DTU Partnership. For more information about ICAT’s approach to country projects or the ICAT Toolbox, please contact the ICAT Secretariat.

Photo credit: Haniel Espinal