 Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I now invite for the official welcome remarks Mr. Prakash Mathema, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of Nepal. Mr. Mathema is also the Chair of the LTC Group under the UNFCCC. Right Honourable Prime Minister, Chair of the Opening Session, Secretary Dr. Podel, Significantly seated on the dyes, Distinguished Invitees, Conference Participants, Media Parsons and Colleagues. Namaste and Good Morning. On behalf of the Government of Nepal, it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the opening session of the 8 International Conference and Coordination-based Adaptation. CVA Conference, as it is known, is an annual international event that brings together policymakers, practitioners, researchers, lawmen, officials, officials of funding agencies and others from around the world who are working to address climate change impacts on the world. The Government of Nepal is honoured to host the 8th Conference in this series. The main objective of this conference is to provide a forum for sharing the lessons and experience on community-based adaptation from different parts of the world. As a theme of this year's conference is financing local adaptation, discussions will focus on how climate finance can be mobilised and utilised to benefit the poor and the vulnerable communities. For climate vulnerable countries, including Nepal, adapting to climate change is not a choice but a necessity. The poor and the marginalized communities are the most vulnerable due to the direct exposure and their low adaptive capacities. Hence, it is important to address the needs of these communities through community-based adaptation. We believe this approach can be further enriched through sharing of experiences among the participants of this conference. The international participants also have had the chance to visit different parts of Nepal to interact with our communities and to have first-hand experience of our vulnerable communities as well as our initiatives to come to our climate adaptation. We believe this will help in setting the context for the discussions that will follow over the next three-and-a-half days. As the chair of the LDC Group at UN Climate Change Negotiations, Nepal is making every effort to raise the voice of the LDCs regarding their adaptation needs. We anticipate the deliberations of this conference will also help us to strengthen our arguments in the climate negotiations. We are privileged to have the chair of the LDC Fund Board, the co-chair of the Green Climate Fund, the leaders of funding agencies, the leaders of developing agencies as participants of the CBA approach. We look forward to your active participation, valuable inputs to this conference, as well as your leadership in the discourse of climate finance for creating an environment that favors vulnerable countries like ours. The executive secretary of the UN Climate and Secretary will also join us in the later part of this conference. This is indicative of the significance of this conference as the world is working towards a strong and effective climate agreement in 2015. The participants of this conference include the very committed people working at the cutting edge of research, policy, and practice of community-based adaptation. It is indeed a pleasure to have you all in Kathmandu. I'm looking forward to a productive conference and a strong Kathmandu declaration on financing local adaptation. Once again, I extend a very warm welcome to you all. Thank you.