The UNITAR Climate Change programme on 4th December 2008 launched a new project on capacity building and adaptation to climate change with 7 regional centers of excellence found in Asia, Africa the Caribbean and the South Pacific, after having secured a 1 million EURO grant from the European Commission/Cooperation Aid.

The project entitled “Capacity Development for Adaptation to climate change and GHG Mitigation” (C3D+) was launched by the Manager of the Climate Change Programme Mamadou Moussa Diakhité, in the margins of the ongoing conference of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland in the presence of the heads of the regional centers of excellence.   The C3D+ project apart from improving the ability of developing countries to address climate change through developing adaptation measures and planning mitigation strategies, will also integrate the work of the different centers of excellence to produce a body of work that builds on their individual expertise.   Taito Nakalevu of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) expressed how the centre hoped to learn and integrate the tools and methodologies developed by the partners and link them to the UNDP-GEF project they will soon implement.   The C3D+ network is made up of the Munasinghe Institute for Sustainable Development (MIND), Srilanka, Climate Systems Analysis Group of the University (CSAG) of Cape Town, Energy Research Centre (ERC)of the University of Cape Town, Environment Development Action in the Third world (ENDA), Senegal, The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), Belize, SPREP, Samoa, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)   and the partners are the Stockholm Environment Institute SEI, and the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD) and the International START secretariat.     For more information please visit: www.unitar.org/ccp