Established in 2012, the Adapt Asia-Pacific programme of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aimed at capacitating 27 governments – 13 in Asia and 14 in the Pacific – to access and manage climate adaptation funds independently through a direct access accreditation. However, it was soon realized that the core challenge was instead the widespread inadequacy of high quality, scientifically sound, bankable project proposals.

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The training programme on Managing Project Preparation for Climate Change Adaptation was then developed to build the capacities of governments in managing the entire project preparation process in the context of international access and working with multilateral implementing entities in mind. This meant that government officers were trained to manage a project design team with international experts as opposed to writing the proposals on their own. The five-day training programme was piloted under the Climate Change Asia initiative at the Asian Institute of Technology on 6-10 June 2016. To date, the training programme has been delivered multiple times in India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand attracting more than 100 participants from across Asia and the Pacific with great success.

With the forthcoming conclusion of the Adapt Asia-Pacific programme in September 2017, The Asian Institute of Technology will take ownership of the training programme under the Climate Change Asia initiative.