Supporting LDCs to strengthen national legislative and policy responses in line with international climate commitments

The effective implementation of the Paris Agreement is dependent on national action. We support the least developed countries (LDCs) to strengthen institutional, policy and legislative structures at the national level through engagement with governments and parliaments. We are also working to promote knowledge and experience sharing at regional and global levels. 

This work builds on IIED’s research and engagement in developing national climate change policies, strategies and action plans in LDCs such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Myanmar and Rwanda, since 2011. 

Developing national structures, policies and legislation to implement the Paris Agreement

In order to implement the various commitments under the Paris Agreement, including their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), many LDCs will require assessing existing policy and legislative frameworks and amending them or developing new ones. Most recently IIED has been providing support to develop national climate change policies in The Gambia and Myanmar that take into account commitments at the international level. 

We also supported LDC parliamentarians to engage in efforts to implement the Paris Agreement at the national level. This has been done in collaboration with the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU), as well as directly with in-country parliamentary committees and staff. 

IIED helps to raise awareness of LDC parliamentarians on issues related to the Paris Agreement and its implementation, including national ratification processes. We also facilitate knowledge and experience sharing between parliaments as well as meetings of national parliamentary committees.

Regional experience sharing workshops

In collaboration with in-country partners (such as Sri Lanka-based NGO Janathakshan), we host regional experience-sharing workshops for policymakers that provide an opportunity for countries, in particular LDCs, to share their experiences of country-driven climate action. 

Although each country operates within distinct political, institutional, socioeconomic and environmental contexts, sharing experiences with each other is invaluable to support mutual learning.

There are many transferable lessons to be learnt from each country, in particular around how climate change priorities can be integrated into national planning and budgets, and what types of institutional mechanisms can be put in place to ensure coordination and policy coherence across relevant sectors.

The workshop discussions inform country case studies that seek to showcase different countries’ experiences of climate action. The first of these focuses on the experiences of Bhutan.