The impacts of climate change are felt around the world and the least developed countries are often the worst affected. There is today a broad acceptance of the need to reduce global CO2 emissions and to increase resilience to climate change. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, is one of many agencies that seek to strengthen its capacity to respond to climate change challenges. Sida’s point of departure is to include climate change as part of competence development on environment as well as integrating climate change in tools and analysis for environmentally sustainable development. Sida views climate change as a sustainable development issue along with other environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

The report "Strengthening the capacity of donor agency staff to face the climate change challenge within the framework of environmentally sustainable development - mapping of donor agency training initiatives on climate change" focuses on strengthening staff capacity to deal with climate change and builds on a survey of a number of donor agencies training activities. The objective of the study was firstly to identify opportunities for sharing of training materials and exchanging experiences and the secondly to look for opportunities for joint training sessions. A questionnaire was sent out to eleven agencies. Respondents were also asked to share evaluations, training material and useful links and to report as fully as their time allowed. The report starts with a brief introduction to training events and how they fit within a broader framework to increase capacity for addressing climate change. It is followed by a summary of the answers to the questionnaire including examples of lessons learned. The report ends with a summary of observations from the survey and reflections on the opportunities for increased cooperation in line with the Paris declaration. Finally, several useful documents and websites are found in annex II.

Strengthening the Capacity