Donor/Partner: Funded by the Government of Canada and administered by the Asian Development Bank    |    Duration: 2018-2020   |    Location: Myanmar

About: Myanmar is one of the countries most at risk of damage and loss from weather-related hazards and climate change. Every year Myanmar is affected by a wide range of high-impact hydro-meteorological and climatological hazards: floods, storms and tropical cyclones in the coastal regions, and earthquakes, landslides, droughts and forest fires throughout the country. During the last decade, the government has strengthened its policy landscape for disaster risk management and climate change adaption to better manage climate and disaster risks.

However, significant capacity gaps remain, particularly in (i) understanding current and future implications of climate and disaster risk on achieving development objectives, and (ii) utilizing such information for resilience planning and identifying investments. To support Myanmar government in this effort, the Strengthening Climate and Disaster Resilience of Myanmar Communities initiative has been launched. ICEM is implementing package 2 of the initiative – Strengthening Early Warning, Resilient Agriculture and Rural Development. The focus of this project is to build capacity at all levels of the government as well as farmers, including women, to identify, analyse and use climate and disaster risk information to improve agricultural planning and decision-making and strengthen resilience. Entry points to achieve this objective are: (i) disaster and climate information products and services, (ii) the bottom-up village development planning mechanism, and (iii) the government sectoral planning process in the agriculture and water resources management sector.

Objective: to build capacity at all levels of the government and communities to better use climate and disaster risk information in strengthening resilience in agricultural development.

Main tasks:

• Capacity building of the hydro-meteorological department to improve agrometeorological forecasts or seasonal forecasts; and of the agricultural department to improve the translation of forecasts into suitable agro-climate advisories to be communicated to farmers through various channels

• Capacity building of the disaster risk management department to improve the collection, analysis and maintenance of disaster damage and loss data

• Development of a GIS-platform based decision-support tool to assist the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation to systematically use climate and disaster risk information to plan, identify and prioritize agricultural investments

• Pilot testing of agrometeorological forecast and advisories for agricultural planning through capacity building of field staff and selecting farmers, including women

• Pilot testing of the integration of climate and disaster consideration in the village development planning process, with implementation of non-structural community investments to strengthen resilience, prioritizing actions for and by women

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