Twenty technical and training staff of the Department of Environment and Natural Resource (DENR) engaged in a coaching session to increase their capacities on supporting local government units (LGUs) in risk-informed planning for climate resilience.
The three-day workshop, conducted on June 14-16, 2023, aimed to equip DENR staff from three service units, the Climate Change Service (CCS), Policy and Planning Service (PPS) and Human Resource Development Service (HRDS), on the use and application of the Provincial Climate Risk Diagnostic (PCRD) Tool and facilitate knowledge sharing among the DENR offices.
The PCRD is an Excel-based tool for local climate risk analytics, which aids provincial risk-based planning and decision-making of LGUs and has the ability to link and support climate risk and resilience tracking at the national level. The tool was developed by UN-Habitat in partnership with DENR with funding support from The World Bank, under the Philippine Government’s Risk Resilient Program (RRP). The tool is also aligned with and being utilized by other projects across UN-Habitat’s resilience program, such as the Strengthening Institutions and Empowering Localities Against Disasters and Climate Change in the Philippines (SHIELD) and Transformative Actions for Climate and Ecological Protection and Development (TRANSCEND), which is in the project development phase.
Increasing knowledge, recognizing challenges and opportunities
The workshop built on the PCRD Training of Trainers organized by UN-Habitat in December 2022, which capacitated the technical staff from DENR and other national government agencies.
Recognizing the role of DENR, UN-Habitat organized the workshop to increase the agency’s knowledge on the concepts, methodology, and application of the PCRD tool in the context of RRP and the wider DENR mandate. Specifically, it provided mentoring on training LGUs based on DENR-CCS’ roll-out plan; it also facilitated coaching sessions on strategies and techniques to effectively address potential challenges maximize opportunities in working with LGUs as they utilize the PCRD tool.
The workshop consisted of input presentations on the rationale of the PCRD project and overview of the tool; the PCRD process detailing how it aligns with the LGU planning process, data, indicator requirements and LGU information needed, and climate hazards and impact drivers. It also discussed how PCRD determines the risk index and identifies specific drivers and variables of risk; and how the results of the tool are presented and used in decision-making and formulation of relevant plans, such as the Provincial Development and Physical Framework Plan, Resilience Roadmap, and Investment Portfolio for Risk Resilience.
Equally essential in the workshop were the mentoring and coaching sessions where participants identified real-life challenges associated with climate risk analysis such as unavailability and incompleteness of datasets, limited technical capacity and human resources, and competing priorities among LGUs. The participants also identified areas of interest like the prioritization of adaptation actions and the use of multi-criteria analysis (MCA), which was developed by UN-Habitat and serves to complement the PCRD tool. To further enhance the participants’ knowledge in these areas, the PCRD training team provided concrete examples of the MCA process, offering practical guidance on decision-making processes, and illustrating its application within the context of adaptation planning.
The workshop concluded with participants drafting their training rollout plan.
UN-Habitat will continue to provide technical support to DENR as the agency aligns its three service units to level off the implementation of the RRP and the PCRD tool, with CCS leading the rollout of the PCRD tool among LGUs.
