 Excellencies, Distinguished Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, Hello and Greetings from the Kingdom of Bhutan. It is my pleasure to be here at this important event on locally led adaptation. Firstly, I would like to start by thanking the organisers for this well coordinated event. I speak to you during these challenging COVID-19 times when countries face new lockdowns, uncertainties and restrictions. My thoughts and prayers are with you all. It is my hope that soon we can put these difficult times behind us and move forward with new hope and energy to tackle a crisis that is even more detrimental to the climate crisis. Distinguished participants, the least developed countries recognise that business as usual approaches to deal with the climate crisis are not working in our countries. Already, even at just one degree of warming, the impacts are devastating. If we fail to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in Paris, the impacts would be increasing rapidly. Therefore, our priority is to improve our abilities to adapt to the effects of climate change and build resilience to the climate shocks. For this, there is a need to scale up climate finance for implementation of climate action in our countries to address the needs of the most vulnerable. We also need to build our local and national institutional capacity, strengthen local and traditional knowledge and technology to adapt to adverse impacts of climate change. However, less than 14% of global climate finance reaches the least developed countries and less than 10% is dedicated to local action. This is unacceptable. Those in the poorest countries on the frontline of climate change are not receiving the support they need to survive. If this continues, we will fail to address the climate crisis. Clearly, things need to change. More financial resources are needed for local governments, communities, enterprises and actors working at local level to implement their own climate solution for greater ownership and autonomy. To tackle these challenges, the LDC Group have stepped forward. We launched our long-term 2050 vision at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. This vision is for LDCs to be on climate resilient development pathways by 2030 and deliver net zero emissions by 2050 to ensure our societies, economies and ecosystems thrive. Our vision is not an empty statement. Our three LDC-led initiatives on effective adaptation and resilience, LIFE AR, Renewal Energy and Energy Efficiency, RIA and LDC Universities Consortium on Climate Change, LUCK are already supporting its delivery and implementation across the least developed countries. Through our LDC initiative on adaptation and resilience, LIFE AR, we are aiming for 70% of climate finance to reach local level for action on ground by 2030. Ladies and gentlemen, despite being the poorest and most vulnerable, these developed countries came forward and set the most ambitious target for ourselves to fight climate change, even though this burden should not rest with us as we are the least responsible. We wish to take the lead in stepping up climate ambition, encouraging all members of the international community, including donors, civil society, climate funds and private sector to join with us and follow our example. I am inspired by the local-led adaptation principles that are being put forward today and by those organizations that have already endorsed them. These principles, including the focus on increasing resources to local level, providing patient and predictable funding and investing in local capabilities, are a serious and meaningful response to the LDC's ask of the international community as outlined in our vision. And this ask matches our offer, ensuring together we can build the systems to deliver meaningful support to our communities at real scale. This is a critical element of the resilience of our societies when shocks hit, whether climate or a pandemic. We therefore welcome the leadership by the Global Commission on Adaptation in responding to the LDC's ask and concerns through the development and spearheading of these principles as you join us on a journey to deliver the LDC vision 2050 with your own commitment to 10 years of learning and improving our delivery of support. Distinguished participants, I ask that you take these principles seriously. Do not see them as merely a tick box exercise, nor a way of justifying your existing ways of working. Please use them to inspire and ensure meaningful improvements and changes in your organizations, ensuring local action led by the most vulnerable communities that is placed at the very heart of your work. We understand this will be a vast undertaking, but our mutual support and shared principles give me confidence that we can do this and do it well, working together for a brighter and better future. I thank you all and Tashi Deleg.