The NAMAcademy held it first summer course on conceptualising and development of NAMAs from 19 to 30 August 2013 at Kalundborg, Denmark.
Bringing together facilities and personnel from the UNEP Risø Center and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the course was attended by 11 participants from Chile, Colombia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal.
Established by the UNEP Risø Centre for Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development (URC) in November last year, the NAMAcademy course is designed to prepare participants for conceptualization and design of NAMAs in the context of UNFCCC processes. Over two weeks, it covered topics such as political context of NAMAs, current status of development and support, the NAMA cycle, NAMA governance, stakeholder participation, support tools for prioritizing NAMA options. The training also included practical advice on submission of a NAMA for the UNFCCC NAMA register. The courses adopted the use of the NINo format – the NAMA Information Note, developed by UNEP Risø Centre to capture the necessary elements of a NAMA for a structured presentation.
The trainers were experts who have provided technical assistance to developing countries’ climate actions over the past 10-15 years under different programmes funded by bilateral and multilateral institutions, while at the same time providing support during international climate negotiations.
The course participants applauded URC’s efforts at organizing such a course and were please to be the first batch of students which allowed them exchange ideas and experiences with similar professionals from other countries.
One of the participants, Sebastian Lema Demante, a Consultant for National Planning Department and USAID, has the role of providing financial advice to the Colombian Low Carbon Development Strategy. He commented, ‘the last two weeks here at the NAMAcademy have been a win-win process where a good theoretical framework from the UNEP Risø team has been combined with practical experiences from my colleagues from different countries. I will try to apply the learnings from this course by trying to combine different sources of funding for early NAMAs in Colombia, by including donors, corporations, national budget and of course private sources.’ Another participant, Emily Castro from Mexico City who works for GIZ, said ‘On returning to Mexico I will support the Mexican government with creation of NAMAs, in the organization of the NAMA office and help create and set guidelines for the creation of NAMAs’.
The NAMAcademy will organise its next general course in February 2014. To pre-register for the course, visit http://www.namacademy.org/default.aspx and direct any questions to Søren Lutken at snlu@dtu.dk.