1. Context
The Consultative Group of Experts (CGE), at its fifth meeting held virtually on 2–3 March 2021, agreed, as a part of its work plan for 2021, to organize its annual informal forum in the month of December 2021. Owing to the impact of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the CGE concluded that it was not practical to organize the informal forum as an in-person event, and hence, agreed to organize it as a virtual event on Wednesday 8 December 2021 from 14:00 – 16:00 CET.
2. Objective and description
The objective of the fourth informal forum of the CGE was to showcase the work undertaken and achievements of the CGE in 2021 and engage with and seek feedback from its key stakeholders, including:
- Country experts and policy makers who are key drivers of MRV/transparency efforts nationally;
- Bilateral and multilateral agencies providing financial and/or technical support on MRV/transparency;
- Other international organizations providing financial and/or technical support on MRV/transparency; and
- Other MRV/transparency experts.
The forum aimed to provide a platform for relevant stakeholders to informally reflect and exchange views around the experiences of both developed and developing country Parties on some of the key factors, such as domestic political buy-in, capacity-building and access to finance, that are critical to sustaining national efforts to enhance and maintain institutional arrangements that enable them to prepare and to submit their national reports under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. These factors continued to have similar influence, especially for developing country Parties, as they prepare and transition to the ETF under the Paris Agreement. The feedback gathered from the event informed the design of work plan of the CGE in 2022.
3. Programme
Moderator: Ms. Virginia Sena, the Chair of the CGE
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Time allocated
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Agenda item
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15 mins
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Opening
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30 mins
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Showcase of CGE achievements and plenary discussion, by CGE
The narrative of the presentation was developed around the key elements of the CGE work in 2021 with the aim of showcasing the achievements and lessons learned, and seeking feedback from its key stakeholders. After each element was introduced, a short period of time was allocated for an interactive discussion, mainly focusing on:
- Seeking feedback on the outputs of the CGE work in 2021 from the end-user’s point of view;
- Gathering intelligence on the additional and/or evolving needs of developing countries and their priorities.
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45 mins
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Focused group discussion (FG)
The focused group discussion was convened in three smaller groups running in parallel. Each group undertook one of the following topics: domestic political buy-in, capacity-building and access to finance.
FG #01: domestic political buy-in
This group on the basis of experiences, lessons learned and expert judgment, aimed to answer the following (but not limited to) questions:
- How does domestic political buy-in affect the national efforts to successfully implement the existing MRV arrangements under the Convention and transition to the ETF under the Paris Agreement?
- What are the root causes of a weaker domestic political buy-in?
- How can these identified root causes be addressed and how are the key actors?
FG #02: capacity-building
This group on the basis of experiences, lessons learned and expert judgment, aimed to answer the following (but not limited to) questions:
- What are key factors that determine the impact and effectiveness of the current mode of capacity-building for MRV/transparency?
- How to make the best use of the capacity built and also ensure that the knowledge and skills gained is retained sustainably?
- What are the key emerging needs of capacity-building?
FG #03: access to finance
This group on the basis of experiences, lessons learned and expert judgment, aimed to answer the following (but not limited to) questions:
- How are key lessons learned and/or good practices in the process of preparing for and accessing financial support for the preparation of biennial update reports/national communications/biennial transparency reports in a timely manner?
- What are the success factors for mobilizing financial support from other international sources?
- What lessons can be learned or inspirations can be drawn from those Parties that managed to allocate financial resources for MRV/transparency work from its domestic sources?
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25 mins
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Plenary discussion
- Report back from the focused groups
- Plenary input to the focused groups
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05 mins
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Closing
- Summary of key takeaways
- Closing remarks by the Chair of the CGE
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