THE World Bank is moving ahead with a milestone support project for Guyana’s climate change model and a large bank mission is due here today to finalise aspects of the scheme.

Guyana is leading a group of 37 countries around the world that stands to benefit from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) administered by the World Bank.

World Bank Guyana Country Representative, Mr. Giorgio Valentini, yesterday said the bank wants to reinforce the message that it supports the Guyana Government on its climate change programme, including the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).

“We think the government has done a very good job in the consultations on the strategy”, he told the Guyana Chronicle. He said this view is also shared by the donors.

Valentini said the 20-member mission includes representatives from the United States and the United Kingdom, two of the FCPF donor countries, and it is the final assessment before anticipated approval of support for Guyana under the trust fund.

The visit, organised by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), is financed by the World Bank and the British Department For International Development (DFID) and the mission will undertake field trips, Valentini said.

The team will travel to the Iwokrama Forest Reserve, Nappi and other communities in Region Seven, and participation in its work will come from Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, the four non-governmental organisations involved in Amerindian affairs, the Amerindian Affairs Ministry, and the Chairman of the National Toshaos Council, among others.

This country’s participation in the FCPF is an initiative of the Guyana Government following President Bharrat Jagdeo’s approach to the international community for Guyana to get compensation from its forest value to future carbon markets.

As this is an initiative driven and owned by Guyana, the country is also likely to be the first to benefit from the FCPF’s Readiness Mechanism Phase grant of US$3.6M to help prepare the necessary environment to participate in the Carbon Finance Mechanism (or Carbon Fund) of the FCPF, Valentini said in July.

At the FCPF Participants’ Committee (PC) meeting on June 16-18, 2009, in Montreux, Switzerland, the PC cleared the proposals for Guyana, Panama and Indonesia for funding under the Readiness phase (i.e. Total Grant, $3.6M), subject to compliance with safeguards and other Bank due diligence.

The FCPF was launched at the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, and became operational in June 2008.

As of April 2009, 37 countries from Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America are participating in the FCPF, and 13 donors or contributors from both the public and private sectors are supporting the FCPF financially.

An earlier World Bank due diligence mission came up with a “very positive assessment” and the grant may be approved in the next few months, Valentini said earlier this year.

The GFC did a superb job in documenting the issues for the Bank’s Readiness Preparation Plan (R-PP formerly known as R-Plan) and Guyana is the only country cleared at the PC meeting that is undergoing the due diligence of the World Bank for approval of the FCPF’s grant, he said.

This means it will probably receive the grant before Panama and Indonesia, the other two countries that are at a similar stage of readiness, he said.

Valentini earlier this year said, “I am a supporter of the climate change agenda of the country and the proposed LCDS provides a very good entry point into the preparation mechanism for the FCPF and the future carbon fund mechanism. The President has well illustrated the benefits of Guyana’s forest to the world and the potential for improving Guyana’s socio-economic development. On this, we are looking forward to supporting the government in implementing the LCDS and to make Guyana a best practice for the rest of the countries in the FCPF.”

“It’s a very unique opportunity if you think about Guyana being the first of 37 countries worldwide in this”, he said.

He explained that the preparation phase to be supported by the grant involves a baseline and historical assessment of the forest to understand the rate of deforestation, changes in the forest and the drivers of deforestation.

The grant is to prepare the country to move into the Carbon Fund Phase, which remunerates selected countries with Performance-Based Carbon Payments from carbon markets and/or funds, with a certain baseline, including a monitoring and verification system by which international organisations can monitor the forests for deforestation, the impact of mining and other factors, he said.

“Guyana can become the best practice after this is done…something that Guyana can be proud of and that can provide long-term sustainability to improvements in the social and economic sectors”, he said.