Côte d’Ivoire – A political and institutional framework to implement the nationally determined contribution
Côte d’Ivoire’s Sustainable Development Orientation Bill, adopted by the National Assembly in 2014, called for the establishment of an institutional framework to implement the climate agenda, including the creation of a national climate agency and a national climate fund.
The National Climate Change Response Strategy for 2015-2020 supported this mandate, and also required mainstreaming climate change into development policies; enhancing climate knowledge and capacity building; improving and promoting mitigation and adaptation measures; encouraging R&D and technology transfers; working on disaster risk reduction; and mobilising climate funds.
In addition, the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), ratified in 2016, prioritised the adoption of a legal and regulatory framework for its implementation and monitoring, as well as the establishment of an institutional framework and mobilisation of financing from various sources, including the private sector.
In an effort to update the Sustainable Development Orientation Bill to provide an adequate legal basis for the Response Strategy and the NDC, the Intra-ACP GCCA+, through its Climate Support Facility, provided technical assistance to the Ivorian Ministry of Health, Environment and Sustainable Development to prepare the ground for a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for climate action.
The assignment included preparing a new climate change bill along with its implementing decrees; carrying out a feasibility study for the creation of a national climate agency and climate fund; and organising a training workshop on climate change theory. Beginning in June 2018, five local experts worked with stakeholders from the public and private sectors for a little over a year to produce the bill and the feasibility study, and to prepare the three-day workshop which took place in March 2019.
The deliverables were validated in 2021 by a technical inter-ministerial committee set up by the Ministry of Health, Environment and Sustainable Development to ensure quality control. The committee found that results met the beneficiaries’ highest expectations, setting the tone and pace for real progress in implementing the NDC and achieving resilience and adaptation to climate change throughout the nation.
“Today, Côte d’Ivoire can be proud of its brand-new climate change bill, a major instrument in our current situation”, says UNDP Project Manager Agré Richmond Assie. “We now know what institutional options are available to reinforce our resistance to climate change (…) Integrating the rural towns was an innovative approach that allowed for the compilation of a wider range of data to inform the decision-making process.”
Factbox
- Technical Assistance implemented over a one-year period (11/06/18 - 04/07/19).
- Deliverables prepared by five local experts, including a jurist, experts in public administration, climate financing and climate change, and a training consultant.
- New climate change bill with its two implementing decrees (one for the national climate agency and one for the climate fund), drafted in consultation with the beneficiary parties. The draft climate law is expected to be submitted to the Government General Secretariat for approval by the end of 2022.
- The creation of the climate agency and climate fund will follow the approval of the climate law. It is expected to be operational by 2024.
- 39 participants in the three-day training workshop on climate change theory, including representatives of Ministries and government agencies in charge of health, environment and sustainable development, agriculture, natural resources, waste management, energy, disaster risk management and other climate-related areas; national development funds, programmes and projects; local institutions; the business sector; and civil society organisations.