1. Project description: [Brief description of project, key activities and outputs, how will it be implemented?]

The Community Resilience Partnership Program (CRPP) is a regional partnership program of the Asian Development Bank to support selected countries in Asia and the Pacific region, including Vanuatu to (i) scale up local adaptation solutions in alignment with national climate priorities; (ii) finance local adaptation solutions that explicitly address the climate and poverty nexus and are implemented in the context of large-scale poverty reduction programs; and (iii) work with local institutions and communities to build long-term capacity for dealing with climate shocks and stresses. By doing so, the CRPP aims to address the points of procedural and distributive justice so that the people most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change can engage in a fair process and receive a fair share of the benefits of adaptation efforts.

The CRPP comprises two separate but interlinked components; the CRPP Trust Fund (TF) focusing on upstream support to strengthen the enabling environment required for implementing local adaptation measures at scale; and the CRPP Investment Fund (IF) focusing on the efficient roll-out of local adaptation measures through downstream investments.

The TF (NOT funded by GCF) will provide technical assistance and grant resources financed by development partners and administered by ADB, to selected countries to implement the following three outputs: (1) increased awareness and capacity on use of climate risk information to improve decision-making at the local level; (2) institutions’ ability to develop and deliver local adaptation investments at scale strengthened; and (3) large-scale local adaptation projects identified and designed in the context of wider poverty reduction programs. The TF will include a special gender window to ensure all CRPP financed activities mainstream gender equality and to promote women-focused investments in adaptation.

The IF (WITH support from GCF) will provide grant financing as part of ADB projects, to seven selected countries namely, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Pakistan, PNG, Timor Leste, and Vanuatu to implement three climate related outputs (4) information and systems for delivering applied climate-risk informed local investments at scale; (5) climate resilient pro-poor livelihoods investments implemented; and (6) pro-poor climate adaptation infrastructure investments implemented.

This program proposal is to request the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to provide grant financing for the CRPP IF. Once the program proposal is approved by the GCF, countries can access grant resources from the CRPP IF against ADB financed projects that are included in ADB’s Country Operations Business Plan for respective countries. The projects would need to meet the strict eligibility criteria set by the CRPP IF (see GCF Proposal - sections B.3.(3) and B.4. and annexe 2.4). The projects will be implemented as national projects in the country, in line with national climate priorities and with an explicit focus to support the poor and vulnerable population.

At this stage, at least one potential project has been pre-identified for each participating country. Information on these pre-identified projects is provided in the GCF Proposal (section B.3.(2) and Annex 2.3). For Vanuatu, the pre-identified project is “Climate Change and COVID-19:  Building Comprehensive Resilience in Poor and Vulnerable Groups” (hereafter referred to as VP1). This builds on baseline investment funding from the ADB.

Note: as with all participating countries, for Vanuatu the pre-identified project is only at the concept stage and at the early stages of design – both the baseline and the outputs related to the GCF funded Outputs. This is subject to concept approval, further design, appraisal and full approval. Hence, for this Form, not all sections can be completed at this stage.

Subsequent to GCF approval of CRPP, further additional country projects (one or more) may be identified in Vanuatu. No information can be provided on these further projects at this stage. The identification and selection and design will be in line with the detailed criteria and process set out in Annex 2.4 of Full Proposal.

The pre-identified Vanuatu Project: Climate Change and COVID-19:  Building Comprehensive Resilience in Poor and Vulnerable Groups (VP1)

The VP1 Project Outcome is the “Capabilities of poor and vulnerable households in Vanuatu to withstand and adapt to the impacts of climate change and global pandemics (notably COVID-19) improved.”

The proposed GCF support takes place within the context of ongoing ADB/Government support to poor and marginalized groups to build resilience, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As demonstrated repeatedly in recent climate disasters and through the pandemic, the poor and marginalized communities and sections of society in Vanuatu are the most negatively impacted by externally generated crises. Further, the factors providing resilience to climate change to vulnerable populations are typically the same factors that provide resilience to global pandemics. Hence, the GCF support will collaborate with the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic to create comprehensive resilience amongst the vulnerable sections of Vanuatu society – thereby generating important synergies.

The project will respond to climate challenges by creating, modifying and enhancing climate responsive social protection systems and enhancing climate resilient livelihood support mechanisms, as follows. 

(i) Social protection: Existing initiatives provide targeted support payments to the vulnerable. These are temporary, typically raised in response to disasters, and dependent on international partners. Moreover, they do not consider climate change impacts, they are small scale and lack the institutional capacity required to upscale. Given the projected increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, Vanuatu requires social protection systems that are able to effectively protect the vulnerable against climate shocks. Thus, the project will strengthen the capacity of social protection systems to function in advance of and through climate disasters, to respond to the specific challenges of both slow and rapid onset climate disasters, and to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.

(ii) Livelihood support: Building on existing, related initiatives in Vanuatu, the project will also help vulnerable populations to adapt to climate change and become climate resilient by establishing schemes that develop resilient livelihood skills and practices. The project includes a strong focus on women.