BY LORETTA B MANELE
Climate budgeting reform is an ongoing commitment of the Solomon Islands government at country level, says Roy Mae, Deputy Secretary for the Ministry of National Planning and Development Coordination (MNPDC).
He discussed this during a panel session at the 54th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting Side Event “Unpacking Resilience-Strengthening Systems, Capacities and Practical Solutions” yesterday.
Mae said climate budget, simply, is a galvanized process of identification, measurement, and monitoring of climate and environmental expenditure.
Meanwhile, he said that the reform is to strengthen coordination between the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of National Planning and Ministry of Finance in leading government agencies to make a response to climate change.
The aim of this reform as said is to improve the country’s capacity to address climate change finance as well as to strengthen planning and public spending.
He explained that in terms of the role of the Ministry of Planning, one of the main mandates are the preparation of national development plans, middle-tier plans, as well as the annual development budget.
Speaking of national development plans, Mae said at the moment there is a 20-year National Development Strategy 2016-2035 which includes components like; sustainable and inclusive economic growth, poverty alleviation, access to social services like education and health, and the important ones are resilience, environment, sustainable development, and the last one is good governance and unity.
“In terms of the middle-tier plan, we have the middle-tier strategy in place as a vehicle for implementing the national development strategy, and on an annual basis, we have the development budget that will be used to fund projects and programs in sectors and line ministries,” he added.
Mae emphasised that from this process, there is an opportunity to integrate climate budget targeting to ensure that resilience priorities are mainstreamed across sectors and government ministries when preparing the development programs, as well as development projects.
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