Deadline: 30 April 2020
The Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) has opened its Second Call for Proposals, through the Ecosystem-based Adaptation Facility (the EbA Facility). The EbA Facility is requesting project proposals with a focus on EbA actions that help people adapt to adverse effects of climate change, reduce disaster risk, and build resilient ecosystems and economies.
The EbA Facility resources are composed of a 45 million EURO contribution from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety through KfW.
Types of Projects to be Supported
Projects to be supported should contribute to the realization of the 2 strategic objectives of the EbA Facility, which are:
Strategic Objective 1: To sustainably manage EbA supporting marine and coastal zone habitats, incorporating social and economic resilience to climate change.
- Improved management of habitats to reduce climate risks:
- This intervention category covers a range of management activities that directly protect habitats in order to reduce climate risks. However, the activities undertaken will not engage those activities intended to be addressed under the Endowment. Illustrative activities include:
- Management programs to mitigate the major threats to protected areas or marine managed areas that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services.
- Alternative and sustainable livelihood programs explicitly designed to strengthen protected areas or marine managed areas that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services.
- This intervention category covers a range of management activities that directly protect habitats in order to reduce climate risks. However, the activities undertaken will not engage those activities intended to be addressed under the Endowment. Illustrative activities include:
- Community engagement to reduce climate risks:
- This intervention category is to be engaged in tandem with the interventions identified in the section above. It covers a range of activities linked to community engagement in reducing climate risks. Activities could be designed to create greater understanding, capacity and participation among the people most affected by climate change, and that most depend on ecosystem services provided by natural habitats. Illustrative activities include:
- Promote diversified, supplemental and sustainable livelihoods that can simultaneously reduce social vulnerability and reduce pressures on EbA-supporting marine and coastal resources.
- Promote sustainable agriculture as a means of relieving the pressure on marine and coastal zone ecosystems as well as providing for enhanced food security.
- Raise awareness of local communities and local decision-makers regarding EbA and climate risk reduction.
- Strengthen the participation and capacity of communities to implement EbA activities such as those outlined above.
- Testing/developing new EbA models:
- Across the above intervention categories, the EbA Facility could support the testing and development of new EbA models that could be scaled up, including new approaches, techniques and technologies. Illustrative examples include:
- Ridge to reef (R2R) approach: This approach emphasizes the connectivity of adjacent
- ecosystems, from upland forests to coastal areas, and ensures a wholistic, systems view of the effects of connected ecosystems on a particular coastal population.
- Community-based adaptation (CbA) approach: This approach emphasizes community participation and leadership in EbA projects—covering community priorities, needs, knowledge and capacities—to empower coastal communities to plan and cope with the impacts of climate change.
- Economic models for quantifying benefits to communities through EbA projects
- Across the above intervention categories, the EbA Facility could support the testing and development of new EbA models that could be scaled up, including new approaches, techniques and technologies. Illustrative examples include:
Strategic Objective 2: To rehabilitate and restore EbA-supporting marine and coastal zone habitats incorporating social and economic resilience to climate change.
Projects to be supported which will contribute to the realization of this strategic objective will include:
- Restoration and rehabilitation of habitats to reduce climate risks:
- This intervention category covers a range of activities that directly restore or rehabilitate habitats in order to reduce climate risks. Restoration activities could include conventional (wellestablished) natural habitat restoration approaches, new types of natural habitat restoration approaches, and hybrid solutions that combine build infrastructure with natural habitats. Hybrid solutions, also known as green-grey solutions, often provide cost effective, long-term climate resilience to vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Illustrative activities include:
- Restore coral reefs through coral nursery and out-planting operations that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services. This could include new technologies and approaches for scaling up coral restoration.
- Restore mangroves through nursery and out-planting operations that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services.
- Restore sea-grass beds through out-planting operations that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem functions.
- Reduce land-based sources of pollution that have contributed to degradation of marine and coastal zone ecosystems and which affect their resilience to climate change.
- Restore upland forests and riparian areas (linked to climate risk reduction for coastal zones) through reforestation and sustainable forest management operations that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services.
- Implement “hybrid” restoration solutions (green-grey approaches) which integrate traditional “grey” engineering structures, such as sea walls or coastal armoring, and “green” infrastructure such as conservation and restoration of mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass and coastal wetlands. Activities may include new and innovative approaches that reduce climate risks and provide other ecosystem services.
- This intervention category covers a range of activities that directly restore or rehabilitate habitats in order to reduce climate risks. Restoration activities could include conventional (wellestablished) natural habitat restoration approaches, new types of natural habitat restoration approaches, and hybrid solutions that combine build infrastructure with natural habitats. Hybrid solutions, also known as green-grey solutions, often provide cost effective, long-term climate resilience to vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Illustrative activities include:
- Community engagement to reduce climate risks:
- This intervention category covers activities on community engagement in reducing climate risks and building adaptive capacities associated with the restoration and rehabilitation activities identified in the previous section. Activities could be designed to create greater understanding, capacity and participation among the people most affected by climate change, and that most depend on ecosystem services provided by natural habitats. Illustrative activities include:
- Raise awareness of local communities and local decision-makers regarding EbA and climate risk reduction.
- Strengthen the participation and capacity of communities to implement EbA activities such as those outlined in the previous section.
- This intervention category covers activities on community engagement in reducing climate risks and building adaptive capacities associated with the restoration and rehabilitation activities identified in the previous section. Activities could be designed to create greater understanding, capacity and participation among the people most affected by climate change, and that most depend on ecosystem services provided by natural habitats. Illustrative activities include:
- Testing/developing new EbA models:
- Illustrative examples are:
- New approaches to coral restoration: This could include the deployment of technologies that have been developed in recent years, designed to scale up restoration efforts (e.g. micro-fragmentation, enhancement of natural coral reproduction, and the use of new types of remote sensing technologies to monitor and map coral reefs).
- Community-based adaptation (CbA) approach: This approach emphasizes community participation and leadership in EbA projects—covering community priorities, needs, knowledge and capacities—to empower coastal communities to plan and cope with the impacts of climate change.
- Illustrative examples are:
Funding Information
- Project applications may range from 250,000 USD to 2,000,000 USD. The project budget should cover all necessary direct costs to implement the project, including obtaining any required permits or licenses, and signage at the project site(s). Indirect costs should be kept to a minimum.
- Two tiers of funding will be supported.
- Tier 1: Large grants. Large grants would be in the range of US $1M to US $2M, with some exceptions for larger grants involving multi-country/regional projects. These grants could cover projects that target broad geographic scales and larger-scale impacts (e.g. regional, national and seascape-scale projects). Grantees could be regional and national-level entities (government and non-governmental) with a track record of managing grants of this size in the last three years.
- Tier 2: Medium-sized grants. Medium-sized grants would be in the range of US $250,000 to US $1M. These grants could cover projects that target smaller geographic scales and impacts (e.g. seascape-scale and site-scale projects) but could serve as models for scaling up approaches and activities. Grantees could be primarily national and local-level entities (government, civil society), with a track record of managing grants of this size in the last three years.
Project Duration
The projects may be implemented in a maximum period of 36 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications will be accepted from eligible local, national, regional or international nongovernment organizations (NGOs), registered national conservation trust funds (NCTFs), community-based organizations (CBOs), government agencies, regional organizations, private sector companies, universities and other academic institutions, and consortia of organizations. For projects that include Cuba, project proponents must be US based organization . United Nations agencies are not eligible to apply for the current EbA Facility funding.
- The EbA Facility is accessible to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) qualified countries in the insular Caribbean, as determined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC).
- These countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and St.Vincent and the Grenadines. In exceptional circumstances, additional Caribbean countries may receive support through their participation in multi-country projects.
- Multi-country projects are projects involving activities in more than one country, and the majority of countries (at least threequarters) must be on the list of eligible countries referenced above. These multi-country projects could benefit the following additional insular countries: The Bahamas, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
For more information, visit https://www.caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org/news/94-eba-facility-second-call-for-proposals-is-open