Building capacities to address climate change in Myanmar

The Myanmar Climate Change Alliance (MCCA) was launched in 2013 to support the Government of the Union of the Republic of Myanmar in addressing the challenges posed by climate change. MCCA is an initiative of the Environmental Conservation Department (ECD) of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MoNREC). It is funded by the European Union as part of the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA), and implemented by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment). The MCCA Programme works as a platform to mainstream climate change into the Myanmar policy development and reform agenda through raising awareness on the implications of climate change; building policy, institutional and technical capacity to address climate change; and to demonstrate methodologies to enable communities and local authorities to adapt to climate change through implementation of adaptation measures at local level. The MCCA programme also supported the development of key policy instruments for addressing climate change, notably the Myanmar Climate Change Strategy and Master Plan (MCCSMP) and the Myanmar Climate Change Policy.

As part of its activities the MCCA programme was mandated to support Myanmar produce a focused and well-balanced Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) to capture the climate change-specific capacity needs of key stakeholders at all levels. It developed this CNA in consultation with local people in vulnerable areas at sub-national level, taking into account the policy, planning and institutional capacity needs of national-level sectoral areas.