Story | 24 Jun, 2016

Scandinavia supports resilient coastal communities via MFF

Currently in its third phase, Mangroves for the Future (MFF) has received core donor funding from Scandinavian countries, Norway (Norad), Sweden (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and Denmark (Danida) since 2012. A recent article published by Scandasia highlights the support MFF receives from Scandinavian countries, as well as MFF’s programme achievements. MFF coordinator, Steen Christensen, also explained MFF's achievements to date and what lies ahead for its future beyond current funding. An excerpt from the article can be found below, including a link to the full article on the Scandasia website.

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Steen Christensen, MFF Coordinator

Photo: © Scandasia

MFF has received core donor funding from Norad (Norway) and Sida (Sweden) since 2007, and from Danida (Denmark) since 2012. The ongoing third phase of the regional initiative was announced in June 2014, with new funding from Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) for the period 2014-2018.

SIDA’s decision to fund phase 3 was based on significant achievements made by MFF in its first two phases. Up until then, around 200 projects had been implemented through the MFF grants mechanism, and its unique partnership-based model had brought together government, civil society and private sector to play more effective roles in the governance of coastal areas in numerous cases.

But SIDA has also placed demands on MFF for the future.

“SIDA said that MFF must clearly demonstrate the added value of a regional programme, otherwise, they could as well support a number of national projects. So rather than being just a grant mechanism we aim for the project to have a regional impact on sustainable coastal management. MFF follows the principle that healthy coastal ecosystems can contribute significantly to human well-being and resilience to climate change,” explains Steen.

MFF’s main focus is on developing the resilience of ecosystem-dependent coastal communities, and to develop “shared understanding and capacity for building community resilience to natural disasters and climate change related impacts”.

Efforts to influence coastal management policy with an increased emphasis on “soft governance”, as well as to expand its knowledge management and capacity development activities (offering hands-on training and learning opportunities for coastal management practitioners around the region) will also continue.

In 2012, Danida stepped in as a donor to MFF with particular support to a 3-year project (2012 – 2015) aiming at developing an ecosystem-based approach to climate change adaptation in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“With Danida’s support, we took the opportunity to develop our ecosystem-based resilience approach which basically is a set of tools and guidelines to be followed to ensure a consistent approach to climate change adaptation and resilience building. These tools and guidelines are now the guiding principles for the entire MFF programme,” explains the Dane, who has been with MFF since 2011. Based on these results, Danida decided to join Sida as a core donor to all 11 countries for the period 2015 – 2018.

Steen has vast experience working with multidisciplinary programmes relating to management of aquatic resources and ecosystems in Europe, Africa, Greenland and South and Southeast Asia. He was previously in Vietnam as part of a fisheries industry development programme that Demark supported.

Steen has also worked for the Mekong River Commission, conducting economic evaluations within the same industry.

“This is where I got particularly interested in the livelihood aspects of fisheries, especially since millions of people are dependent on these resources.”

For full article please visit the Scandasia website.

 


Mangroves for the Future (MFF) is a unique partner-led initiative to promote investment in coastal ecosystem conservation for sustainable development. Co-chaired by IUCN and UNDP, MFF provides a platform for collaboration among the many different agencies, sectors and countries which are addressing challenges to coastal ecosystem and livelihood issues to work towards a common goal across the region.