Rationale of the Conference

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The world community faces many risks from climate change. These risks manifest even in the day to day living of the people in small communities. Clearly, it is important to understand the nature of those risks, where natural and human systems are likely to be most vulnerable, and what may be achieved by adaptive responses.

While climate change has already become a global agenda, it has been observed that civil society organizations operating in Mindanao are not entirely adept to these issues, much more with operating frameworks on how to integrate the concern in the day to day operations of doing development work thru various community based projects.

Moreover, with the Climate Change and Global Warming rapidly taking center stage attentions both from the views of public and private institutions world wide, PhilDHRRA perceives that in time, funding and donor institutions would require rationalization of the related issues in the design, development and implementation in community projects proposed for grant funding.

Furthermore, in the initial round table discussions with other development players, a consensus was arrived at that a trend is unfolding that initiatives for climate change mitigation and adaptation would potentially broaden the financial resource base of CSOs as concepts of carbon trading and offsetting could possibly be a possible future source of funding for non-profit organizations, if the dynamics of such are fully understood.

In the light of the above observations, a conference was conceptualized and designed serving as mechanism for awareness building, knowledge sharing, and progressive discussions among CSOs, LGUs, POS, donor communities and other development players. The conduct of the Mindanao Conference on Climate Change was a jumpstart activity convened by PhilDHHRA Mindanao and technically supported by a consulting firm SUCCEED, Inc. Part of the initiative was to explore the formation of a Mindanao Network or Coalition for Climate Change. The conference is jointly funded by Lutheran World Relief and Foundation for Philippine Environment with support from World Bank – Civil Society Fund.