| Abstract: | The small, low-lying atoll islands of Maldives are highly vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion. More
than 44% of settlements, including 42% of the population, and more than 70% of all critical infrastructure
are located within 100 meters of shoreline. Intensive rainfall, storm surges and swell waves are expected
to be aggravated through sea level rise and climate change effects on weather patterns. This will
compound underlying trends of increasing coastal erosion and pressure on scarce land resources, and
increase physical vulnerability of island populations, infrastructure and livelihood assets. Climate change
risks and long-term resilience are not adequately integrated into island land use planning, or into coastal
development and protection policies and practice, and past autonomous risk reduction efforts have
sometimes had mal-adaptive effects.
Government of Maldives and UNDP, with the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) assistance
through Global Environment Facility (GEF), is implementing a project titled “Integrating Climate Change
Risks into Resilience Islands Planning” (ICCR) to systematically assess the costs and benefits of
different adaptation options in the fields of land use planning and coastal protection, and to develop the
necessary institutional and individual capacity at national, provincial, atoll and island levels to enable
decentralized and well-informed decision-making. In order to strengthen the enabling environment for
decentralized adaptation planning, climate risk reduction measures will be anchored in key
environmental, land use, decentralization, privatization and disaster risk reduction policies. One of the
pillars of the ICCR Project is to demonstrate practical, locally prioritised adaptation options for flooding
and erosion control on at least four islands in four different atolls. The knowledge from these will be
systematically analysed and fed into policy and planning processes, as well as disseminated nationally
and internationally.
This project proposes to expand the ICCR component to an additional site: the island of FaresMaathoda
in Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll. Coastal Management options will be demonstrated at the island in order to
minimise impacts from the strong waves coming in from the ocean side, especially to minimise impacts
from episodic storm events. Drainage management options will be put in place to minimise the flooding
of the island during rainy season, especially given the changes in the rainfall pattern that is now
observed and are predicted with climate change.
In order to strengthen the community resilience, increasing the capacities of the civil society is extremely
important especially given that efforts on decentralised governance are underway. The UNDP Maldives
hosts the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) for the Maldives which has received numerous
proposals from the communities to address environmental issues such as waste management,
coastal/erosion management, water management etc. Using the SGP mechanism, this project will
support more than 10 community/NGO proposals through the existing SGP.
Waste Management is a serious issue facing almost all inhabited islands, and Fares-Maathodaa is no
exception. “Soft” interventions largely focusing on community awareness and involvement in waste
management will be conducted under this project on the island targeted towards addressing this issue.
It should be noted that the project intervention while attempts to address drainage issues, it does not
intended to address ground water recharge and water resource management. Additionally the project
would not be able to provide complete coastal management options, instead it will support setting up noregrets coastal interventions with regards to the community and government plans for the selected site.
This project will also support the development of a larger comprehensive programme, scaling up the
pilots and best practices that contribute to “low emission climate resilient development |
