| Paris alignment | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Some progress | The climate strategy integrates both mitigation and adaptation. The overarching strategy could be stronger on climate change. A final date for full Paris alignment is missing. |
| Climate strategy | Overarching strategy |
|---|---|
| The climate strategy integrates both mitigation and adaptation. There is no date for Paris alignment. There does not appear to be a ‘do no harm principle’ applied to operations. | Climate change is included in JICA’s medium term plan. There is no direct mention of the Paris alignment of operations. |
Explanation
Overarching strategy
The Development Cooperation Charter of Japan – directs the overall development policy of Japan. Climate change features in two aspects of the Development Cooperation Strategy of Japan: quality growth and that growth must be resilient and sustainable over generations; and addressing global challenges, where climate change is a priority. Climate is also featured within JICA’s medium-term plan, which sets out the operational focus areas for the period 2017–2021. This is therefore likely to be updated by the end of this year. There is a reference to conducting operations in ‘accordance with National Determined Contributions (NDC) of each partner country’. There is also a focus on mainstreaming disaster risk reduction.
Standalone climate strategy
JICA has not yet adopted a date for Paris alignment. As part of the International Development Finance Club, it has committed to develop an operationalisation framework for how Paris Agreement alignment can be achieved by COP 26.
After the Paris Agreement was adopted, JICA released its standalone climate strategy, referred to as its “climate change cooperation strategy”. This was updated in December 2018. It states that mainstreaming of climate change is being implemented by incorporating climate change mitigation and adaptation as early as the planning stage of its projects. It highlights the importance of long-term commitments in tackling climate change by providing support on institutional development and capacity enhancement in countries where there is limited capacity to adequately take on the process of implementing, monitoring and reporting NDCs and increasing their ambition.