Sierra Leone

Abstract

all FAD), Celine Bteish (MCD), Naoya Kato (SPR), and Yakama Jones (Sierra Leone Ministry of Finance). Melody Manning and Edwin Magno provided editorial support. CLIMATE CHANGE: MAINSTREAMING ADAPTATION IN SIERRA LEONE ____________ _ _ BOXES 1. Climate Change and Mining Activities ________________________________________________ assets from climate-related damage, less public resources due to limited political engagement, and adverse market prices (Islam and Windel, 2017). Macro vulnerability requires fiscal policies to balance the needs of climate actions and debt sustainability, while weak institutions require strong PFM to plan and govern climate spending. The fiscal space remains tight with large contingent spending needs to mitigate and adapt to climate change, 4 which significantly limits the capacity for risk transfer, post-disaster relief, and reconstruction expenditure. Competing development demand with investment in adaptation requires prioritizing projects that meet both development and adaptation purposes. Fragile fiscal frameworks and weak budget execution also undermine the effective response to natural hazards, and call for strong PFM to ensure efficient and transparent spending on climate actions B. Climate Commitments and Actions Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) represent pledges to limit global warming. At the heart of the Paris Agreement, NDCs embody countries' mitigation and adaptation efforts to combat climate change. Sierra Leone has developed a national strategy to combat climate change and adopted a framework for crisis response. Sierra Leone approved the first NDC in November 2016 and presented the updated version in 2021, which identified a broad range of sectors affected by climate change. 5 It also envisions to achieve mitigation goals of reducing CO2 emissions by 5 percent before 2025, 10 percent before 2030, and 25 percent before 2050, and sets adaptation goals of reducing vulnerability by half by 2030.In 2021, Sierra Leone published the initial National Adaptation Plan (iNAP) to enable decisive and sustainable actions in adaptation identified in the updated NDC. It includes the four key blocks along the lines developed by UNFCCC, namely i) identifying climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and risks, ii) adaptation-related policies, plans and programs, iii) mainstreaming of adaptation, and iv) monitoring evaluation and reporting. The iNAP also identified five categories of adaptation programs (physical investments, human capacity development, institutional strengthening, regulatory modifications, research) for each vulnerable sector. Together with the National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) developed in 2007, the authorities have prioritized 24 adaptation projects with detailed rationales, project objectives, inputs, outputs, institutional arrangements, risk and barriers, monitoring, and cost estimates (Irish Aid, 2015). However, selection criteria to prioriti...