KATHMANDU: Hariyo Ban Programme, an initiative supported by the USAID, has organised a workshop with an aim to enhance coordination and networking among agencies and projects working in climate change adaptation in Nepal.

The theme of the workshop at hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur on Sunday was ‘Local Adaptation Planning Initiatives and Learning’ where the participants shared the overall climate adaptation approaches, experiences and learning from the Hariyo Ban Programme, the Programme said in the statement today.

The workshop was organised to help enhance an enabling environment to mainstream Local Adaptation Plans for Action (LAPAs) into local development planning processes, the statement added.

Speaking at the workshop, Krishna Chandra Poudel, Secretary at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, said, “Nepal was amongst the first countries in the world to officially endorse Local Adaptation Plans of Action as part of its 2010 NAPA framework.”

“The bottom-up approach through LAPAs will help reduce local climate vulnerabilities and increase resilience among local communities," the statement quoted the official as saying, "With our great learning and experience, now time has come to consolidate our efforts and mainstream climate change adaptation.”

LAPA is a plan prepared at the local level by a multi-stakeholder team including the vulnerable communities which involves decentralised and bottom-up planning processes, according to the Programme.

The process first identifies how people and natural systems are vulnerable to climate change. The most common vulnerabilities includes erratic rainfall, landslides, floods, droughts affecting people’s safety, food security and health, depletion of natural resources and ecological services.