The Inter-American Develo-ment Bank (IDB), yesterday launched an online consultation forum which will be used as a guiding instrument as the bank garners support for actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change within Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to a release from the international organization, the consultation process is an aspect of its Climate Change Strategy Profile(CCSP).
In positioning the bank’s strengths and its unique advantages, the strategy will promote the development and use of a range of public and private sector financial and non-financial instruments which are aimed at strengthening the institutional, technical, and financial capacity of the bank in addressing climate change challenges in member countries.
The IDB stated that the region must be prepared to confront the economic impacts of climate change by advancing clear climate adaptation measures in vulnerable economic sectors and infrastructure systems, among them being agriculture, water resource management, energy and transport infrastructure, tourism, health, urban development as well as disaster risk management.
The bank noted that it will target several of the aforementioned as it addresses the climate change adaptation challenges since the consequences of inaction in these sectors could be catastrophic towards the economic sustainability of nations in the region.
The bank stated that the consultation welcomes the comments and inputs from governments and civil society organizations, specialists, academics and other pertinent actors.
According to the release, the first phase of the CCSP consultations, which have been approved by its Board of Executive Directors, began yesterday and will continue until May 26.
Persons wishing to view the CCSP documents can view them at the bank’s website at http://www. iadb.org/ pubicconsultation or at the website of the Civil Society Consult-ing Group (Guyana) – http://www.csac. org.gy/