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Aether supports the development of a Regional Centre for Climate Action Transparency hub for the Economic Community of Central African States

31 August 2022

The Regional Climate Action Transparency Hub (ReCATH) for the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) will help build a regional centre and a network to support ECCAS countries build sustainable teams of climate transparency experts. The Regional Centre, funded for 3 years by ICAT and supported by Aether and FOKABS will help implement a collaborative/cooperative approach that brings together ECCAS countries and different technical partner institutions and actors supporting climate change related data gathering and integration into strategic decision making and reports. The ReCATH Project will support national decision makers, investors and stakeholders in accelerating mitigation and adaptation action and to meet the reporting requirements of the Paris Agreement.

ReCATH will begin with the recruitment of regional experts and the development of a strengthened network of country support experts through training, capacity building and technical support. This will be focused on building teams equipped to relevant climate change information to a broad range of national and international decision makers and ultimately attract investment and raised ambition for action.

Scope and objectives

This is a 3-year programme and will focus on developing valued data flows and expertise on climate mitigation and adaptation with objectives to.

• Create a centre of expertise on transparency of climate action
• Assess the needs and priorities of each country
• Strengthen the capacity of transparency expertise, data flows and systems and tools in the Congo Basin
• Create a network and community of experts and country managers
• Dissemination of tools and guidelines to support transparency
• Support the mobilisation of resources for climate action

Specific activities will be determined through detailed assessment of the needs and priorities of the different countries.  Programme delivery will focus around knowledge exchange, training and provision of technical support to develop institutional arrangements, improve data quality and systems and tools. Specific technical areas might include:

• Development of MRV/transparency systems and tools (e.g. data gathering, structuring and QA/QC)
• Improving understanding and information sharing around policies and measures (providing support on what to collect and track, how to estimate direct and wider impacts and indicator alignment and development)
• Tracking progress in NDC implementation
• Gathering and presenting information on climate finance and improving understanding of approaches to assess climate finance needs and finance flows.

Activities will focus on priorities within the full scope of transparency under the Paris Agreement and include:

• greenhouse gas (GHG) trends and projections,
• climate observations,
• loss and damage and risks and vulnerabilities
• analysis of mitigation and adaptation action, its investment, and wider impacts.

The programme will focus a physical focus around a team of regional technical experts based in Douala, with support from international experts.

Benefits

To realise the significant change needed to move to low emission, resilient economies, countries need to attract investment and convince decision makers to change sectoral strategies. By 2024, ReCATH hopes to have helped countries in the region to make significant steps in providing decision makers with reliable data to support investment decisions and win buy-in for ambitious climate action.

ReCATH will boost capacity and collaboration across the region by promoting knowledge sharing and sharing of good practices. The developing expertise and understanding will help to give countries the confidence to enhance their ambition, accelerate their climate change actions and meet transparency reporting requirements of the Paris Agreement whilst building greater trust and understanding with their stakeholders and attracting greater investment with lower risk.

International Support for ReCATH Project

Technical support for the ReCATH-ECCAS is being provided by international consultants Aether Ltd, from the UK, who specialise in supporting the development and implementation of MRV systems and FOKABS who specialise in the development and implementation of policies, strategies and programmes in mitigation, adaptation and climate finance. FOKABS are based in Canada with offices in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

DISCLAIMER This publication has been produced as part of a component of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency project (ICAT). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICAT.

PUBLISHED BY Aether Limited.

PREPARED UNDER Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) project supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, the Children´s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection, and ClimateWorks. The ICAT project is hosted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

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