In the first of a series of capacity building workshops on climate action transparency, lessons learned from Kenya were shared with institutional stakeholders from Mozambique on enhanced stakeholder participation.

In Phase II of an ongoing project with the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT), the government of Mozambique aims to strengthen its institutional arrangements for measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) processes in order to advance its country’s capacity to track the implementation of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and achieve their climate targets.

In doing so, partners in Mozambique identified the need for improved stakeholder engagement and participation, noting they often met the challenge that consultations were often held with technical staff and agreements made were often not implemented due to a lack of engagement with stakeholders and decision makers.

To help enhance Mozambique’s stakeholder engagement, UNEP DTU Partnership presented on the ICAT Stakeholder Participation Assessment Guide – a methodology to help countries enhance stakeholder participation in the design, implementation and assessment of climate policies and actions. The training focussed on stakeholder mapping, multi-stakeholder bodies and grievance redress mechanisms.

According to Federico Antonio Canu, Project Officer at UNEP DTU Partnership: “this type of practical guidance and support on planning and implementing effective participatory processes is crucial for the policy design process.”

To provide more context, participants from Kenya shared their practical experience of applying the Stakeholder Participation Guide to facilitate Kenya’s efforts to establish a domestic MRV system for tracking progress of nationally determined contributions in the energy and transport sectors, with a focus on institutional arrangements. Kenya further shared its experience of applying the ICAT Sustainable Development Assessment Guide to an off-grid solar access programme where the Stakeholder Participation Guide was further used.

Reflecting on the workshop, Ms. Esther Wangombe, Senior Deputy Director, Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy, Kenya said: “The Kenya experience was very well received by their team in Mozambique. Participants expressed that they could echo their own situation and challenges with stakeholder participation and institutional arrangements.”

Representatives from Mozambique complemented this by commenting how the training and work completed by participants was very worthwhile and will be relevant for their country’s ongoing efforts to build a robust national MRV system.

In the coming months, ICAT and the UNEP DTU Partnership will also organize capacity building workshops in Mozambique on greenhouse gas inventories, the use of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Model (GACMO), as well as information to report on NDC implementation.

Subscribe to ICAT’s newsletter for project updates on either Kenya or Mozambique or please contact the ICAT Secretariat for more information.