Presidential Decree for Resilient Infrastructure

Costa Rica has made significant progress towards building climate-resilient infrastructure with the introduction of a new presidential decree in 2018. This decree mandates the use of Climate Services in the planning of infrastructure, ensuring that climate change is taken into account as an integral part of the process. This move will not only guarantee the continuity of public services but also help reduce long-term climate-related costs due to damages and losses, thus ensuring public safety. The decree also includes provisions aimed at achieving Costa Rica's goal of Open Data, requiring institutions to make data accessible. This could potentially solve the longstanding problem of access to hydrological data in the country. By making climate risk-informed infrastructure planning mandatory, Costa Rica is taking a step towards a climate-resilient society. This is a positive development and a significant contribution towards global efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The link to the decree (spanish)

Adapta Brasil 

Recently, Brazil developed the platform AdaptaBrasil for accessing information on climate change and impact analysis. This tool allows the user to analyze the impacts of climate change observed and projected in the national territory, giving subsidies to the competent authorities for decision-making.

AdaptaBrasil currently offers information to the energy sector as well as food and water industries. However, new sectors will be incorporated into the platform, such as the transportation sector. This action is the result of a partnership between the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations in Brazil.

The data that has been generated by the studies financed by CSI and ProAdapta (“Impact and Risk Analysis of Climatic Variability in the highways, railroad and port sectors”) will be inserted in the platform’s data base in the coming months.

NBI Climate Proofing Guideline

To ensure the provision of current and future water-related services, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) recognizes the need for well-functioning, climate-resilient infrastructures that support the sustainable use of Nile water resources. This includes flood control, irrigation, and energy production. To achieve its mandate of establishing governance mechanisms and promoting decision support systems for sustainable water management and development, climate-proofing of water-use-related infrastructure is a necessary condition. In line with the Nile Sustainability Framework and the Nile Basin Strategy, a semi-technical guideline has been developed to facilitate the mainstreaming of climate-proofing into all short- or long-term bankable investment decisions at the Nile Basin level. This guideline provides step-by-step guidance to project owners, developers, operators, consultants, decision-makers, policy-makers, financial institutions, and technical advisors on how to incorporate climate resilience into all phases of the project development cycle. Each phase of the infrastructure investment cycle - identification, preparation, implementation, resources mobilization, and operation - should apply all five stages of climate risk management, namely scoping, risk assessment, risk treatment, monitoring, and evaluation. The approach, methodology, and scope will vary within each step. A key characteristic of the development process has been the testing of the PIEVC risk assessment methodology using two case studies from the Nile Basin transboundary context. Through multiple stakeholder dialogues and feedback loops, the guideline has created strong ownership among process participants.

Climate Services for a resilient infrastructure: Planning perspectives for sustainable future of Vietnam

Vietnam is committed to achieving Goal 9 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which focuses on making infrastructure sustainable and resilient. As part of this commitment, the country is working to increase the resilience of its infrastructure nationwide through the implementation of its Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP), National Adaptation Plan (NAP), and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This article summarizes the initial findings of Vietnam's efforts and presents an innovative approach consisting of three strategic measures.

The first measure is to enhance the provision of user-friendly climate services for infrastructure planners. The second measure is to improve the use of climate services and consider climate risk assessment in the infrastructure planning process. The third measure is to mainstream the approach of climate-proofing for infrastructure into the SEDP, NDC, and NAP of Vietnam.

This article provides an insight into Vietnam's strategy for enhancing climate services as a basis for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into infrastructure planning. It was originally published in March 2019 in the Journal of Economy Forecast Review, No. 7, Volume 03/2019, pp.10-15, and has been translated and adapted from the Vietnamese original.