A/HRC/16/62 which was established to provide independent advice and guidance to the UN-REDD Programme. 25. Carlo Scaramella, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Coordinator, World Food Programme (WFP), stressed that climate change was a hunger risk multiplier, as climate change would lead to more frequent, intense and erratic climate and weather-related disasters, deteriorating land and environmental conditions, and decreased food production and availability in various parts of the world and among people and communities that were already experiencing situations of poverty and food insecurity. For WFP, climate change was about people, and in particular vulnerable people, and posed an unprecedented challenge to eradicating hunger and poverty (Millennium Development Goal 1). It was noted that the WFP Strategic Plan emphasized interventions that were “responsive to the principles related to the right to food” and aimed at addressing “the root causes of hunger and vulnerability, including (…) protection causes”. WFP adopted pro-poor, inclusive and equitable adaptation and development policies, and viewed strengthened social protection systems and enhanced productive safety nets as part of climate adaptation approaches. The approach called for local solutions and the empowerment of local actors, with a focus on increasing local resilience. Mr. Scaramella provided examples of the use of Safe Access to Firewood and Alternative Energy (SAFE) stoves, as experienced in Uganda and Sudan, which provide, as a co-benefit, a protection element for women who often experience violence when they fetch wood outside of the refugee camps and which reduce the need to cut down wood for fuel. He also described the Managing Environmental Resources (MERET) programme in Ethiopia, which had successfully contributed to rehabilitating and regenerating degraded land for local communities, benefiting about one million people and providing an interesting and replicable model of resilience-building interventions that were Government owned and community based. 26. Niels Scott, a representative of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, placed the climate change debate within the humanitarian framework, noting that the humanitarian community had consistently raised twin concepts of concern: increasing risk, and increasing vulnerability because of climate change. He noted that the draft climate change negotiating texts included disaster preparedness, early warning systems, emergency response and early recovery, disaster risk reduction and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, migration and displacement, health impacts, food security, gender-sensitive approaches and the need to prioritize help to the most vulnerable communities and countries. A significant part of the way forward on climate change adaptation was through supporting activities at the regional and national levels. In this regard, Mr. Scott gave a number of examples of adaptation activities4 in five key areas, namely: (a) integrating climate change knowledge and research into programmes; (b) developing new partnerships; (c) policies, scope of work and capacitybuilding; (d) advocacy, especially of national adaptation programmes of action or national action plans on disaster risk reduction; and (e) programmes, projects and tools. 27. Ioana Creitaru, a representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), provided information on the Adaptation Learning Mechanism5, a United Nations inter-agency global knowledge platform on climate change adaptation. The UNDP Global Environment Facility was implementing the project in partnership with the World Bank, the Climate Change Secretariat and the United Nations Environment Programme. The 4 5 10 Available in World Food Programme, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, OCHA, Addressing the Humanitarian Challenges of Climate Change: Regional and National Perspectives - Preliminary Findings from the IASC Regional and National Level Consultations, (2009), pp. 10-11. See www.adaptationlearning.net.