An FES and Issam Fares Institute AUB Collaboration

After years of developing the climate vulnerability tool that helps coastal municipalities measure the environmental risks, FES and the Issam Fares Institute Climate Change and Environment program hosted the first stakeholders meeting with municipalities and public offices representatives at IFI-AUB in order to introduce them to the tool and how it can be used to assist the public bodies in identifying the sectors that they have to invest in to increase their climate resilience amidst the climate challenges Lebanon is passing through.

The tool will allow local authorities to understand and identify key vulnerabilities within their jurisdiction and manage their data independently. It will aid municipalities and funding agencies in targeting investments in resilience building or solar energy production for more effective use of financial resources. Once populated with the needed data, the tool may be used to create what-if scenarios of vulnerability of cities along the coast taking into consideration socioeconomic variables and municipal investments.

The project will be run by a team made up of Nadim Farajalla, Manale Abou Dagher, Celine Yazbeck and Rami Abi Ammar, all of whom have extensive experience in index-based environmental assessment and all have worked on the development of the vulnerability assessment tool. The team has a unique blend of experience and creativity in presenting scientific information to lay people which has been developed over several years of experience in the field.

The team, in partnership with FES, has organized the first out of five workshops targeting INGOs; relevant Ministries; select Municipalities; Embassies, select donors; and stakeholders to launch the dashboard of the Vulnerability and Energy Policy Tools. Through these meetings, the team will present the ultimate aim for developing the vulnerability and energy policy tools and explain the components that were used in their development, then highlight the challenges and opportunities identified when developing the policy tools.

In order to facilitate the transfer of information to users and help them become trainers themselves, if needed, a Users’ Manual will be developed, and elaborated to guide the users, step by step, through the dashboard. This manual will be developed based on the interactions during the workshops to allow participants to use it in a more comprehensive manner and also to instruct colleagues later on.

Once the dashboard is installed, it will be tested by municipalities to ascertain their ability to use it.