 Good day and greetings from Sunny Trinidad. It's great to see such a fantastic turnout for this event, and I wanted to quickly recognize colleagues from the NDAs, accredited entities, and CSOs from across the Karakoram region that are part of the Caribbean Climate Finance Action Network that have joined us. Today, I'm excited to present a break that we're doing under the Caribbean program of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, or CPF for short, which is a global initiative. This program provides an interesting model and food for thought, I think, and it is one of the ways that I see our organization Canary contributing to the principles of locally led adaptation, which we endorse back in March. So first, let me start with a quick overview. The CPF's Caribbean program has involved 10 years of investment, providing rapid and flexible financing to civil society to protect critical ecosystems and build resilience. It specifically targets civil society organizations, or CSOs for short, including national NGOs and community-based organizations that co-manage protected areas and conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, including groups led by and supporting women, youth, indigenous peoples, and other marginalized groups. Next, Canary serves as a regional implementation team, overseeing the capacity building of the CSOs, and also managing the small-bound facility with the CPF Secretariat, being the one that has overall program implementation and managing the large amounts with our support. So in its first phase from 2010 to 2016, there were 77 grants twiddling $6.9 million U.S., which people provided that directly benefited 68 CSOs in the region and covered 32 key biodiversity hotspots across eight countries. In its second phase from 2021 to 2026, that recently launched, the program is expected to provide grants twiddling $11.8 million U.S. to at least 60 CSOs and also covered 32 hotspots across eight countries. While the first phase did include a focus on climate change, ecosystem-based adaptation is actually a key investment priority for phase two and is really central to this phase of work. And then the next slide, thank you. So what is it? So this is just a quick snapshot actually of how CSOs were supported and the impact they achieved for the grants in phase one. It is a lot to take in here, so I'm not actually going to go through this in detail. So what is it that makes the CPS Caribbean program business unusual and a useful model to consider when you think about scaling up locally led adaptation? Firstly, there has been a transparent and participatory process for defining the investment priorities and strategy with, for example, over 94 organizations of civil society and the public and private sector engaged in developing the Caribbean ecosystem profile across the region to identify key areas for investment for phase two. This transparency also extends to the review and disbursement of grants overseen by a regional advisory committee and monitoring and evaluation, which is participatory and engages the grantees directly. Secondly, there is a strong focus on the organizational and technical capacity building of CSOs to enable collaborative management and leadership over the long term. Recognizing as Marianne noted in the Coampa Fund that strong local organizations are needed to implement effective conservation and adaptation measures. Thirdly, it is a programmatic approach that provides flexible funding via small grants, 50,000 US and under and large grants above 50,000 US, which we try to tailor to the needs of different CSOs. So many Caribbean CSOs are small in size and scope and really can't absorb more than small grants of 50,000 US, but there are also a number of higher capacity CSOs that can manage up to half a million or a million and recase its diversity as part of the program. The Caribbean program also uses a homegrown intermediary which is a regional NGO that understands the national and regional context, has built trust and we have well-established relationships with CSOs across the region and has a long-term presence and a commitment to capacity building and supporting conservation, adaptation and resilience building. There is also focus on improving the enabling conditions for conservation, ecosystem-based management and resilience, including strengthening national policies and plans, convening roundtables with donors to improve coordination to meet investment priorities under the Caribbean system profile and also fostering public-private civil society partnerships. So in terms of how the CPF Caribbean program aligns with the eight principles for locally-led adaptation that Mark highlighted in an overview of earlier, it actually aligns quite well with principles two, three, four as well as six, seven and eight as shown on the slide. However, in terms of principle one, much of the decision-making rests at the regional level with canary individual advisory committee and so it's not necessarily devolved to the national community level per se. Interestingly though, this does have benefits in terms of the economies of sale of having a regionally-administered fund rather than many national funds or national intermediaries across the eight target countries. Also, while there has and will continue to the efforts to better understand climate change impacts and risk to guide the adaptation rate, it has not been a significant focus on climate information services to inform decisions as outlined in principle pilots. That said, the program has adopted a number of practices and leverage financing to support climate risk management and build resilience, including documenting and integrating local and indigenous knowledge and practices in assessing climate risks, vulnerabilities and potential solutions, designing and implementing ecosystem-based adaptation solutions with a focus on critical forests, mangroves and coral reefs in the region that obviously provide important ecosystem goods and services for local, livelihoods and communities. Next slide. It's also mainstreaming climate change and disaster risks into management funds both at the site level, but also aligning with key national funds. And it also seeks to address gender inequality and other vulnerabilities through training CSOs, for example, in gender-responsive approaches, environmental and social safeguards, as well as other tools. So there has been an interesting journey from 2010 when the CPF phase one of the Caribbean was launched to phase two was just started this year and the program has evolved through learning by doing. So some of the key lessons that I wanted to highlight were firstly the recognition of the need to invest the time and resources to effectively address the capacity gaps of civil society organizations and be responsive to their needs in order to truly realize the capacity building outcomes of the program. This is something that was underestimated in the first phase and there's actually much more funding that's going towards the capacity building program in this phase two. Also, I think it's important to note that with the grant funding, even though it seems like small amounts, CSOs were actually able to pilot quite innovative actions and have real impact on the ground, including developing the Caribbean's first forest carbon offset program and payments for ecosystem services for sustainable financing in the Dominican Republic under phase one. So with the success of phase one and the now proven track record of the target CSOs, the CPF funders have actually doubled the commitment and investment for phase two, recognizing the need and potential in the region, which is exciting. However, there have been some key challenges and setbacks that are worth noting and holding to the address as we move forward. This includes the fact that it actually took a lot of time to set up and launch phase two with a five day gap between phases that was not actually planned. It was supposed to be much shorter than that. And this is in fact, I think disrupted some of the activities of the CSOs that have been expecting the phase two. It's also increased threats to biodiversity and local livelihoods due to the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic that would not have been affected into the original ecosystem profile and investment strategy when it was developed in 2017 to 2018. And so those issues I think will need to be addressed. And there's already some anecdotal evidence that with people losing their jobs and their livelihoods and the threat, it is heavier natural resource use and exploitation and they will have to look at how we're kind of addressing that threat. And then obviously there's also the long-term sustainability post-investment that we have to consider in a once this investment phase is done in 2026, how do we move beyond this and continue to provide this type of support. So I think with that, I'll end here as I think my eighth minute is probably up. So thanks very much. And if you're interested in learning more, please check out the program webpage which is listed on the slide. I can also put it in the chat and also feel free to contact me or my colleagues via email. So with that, I'll hand back over to you, Rebecca. Thank you, Aynka. That was a really exciting presentation. I'm great to see you. I hope that these slides will be shared so that we can go back and pull with that one slide that you had with all of the exciting impacts that you actually are already beginning to see from this work. So again, similarly, we'll just ask one or two questions to you that are coming through from the audience. One question you mentioned and it's great to see that we actually can see a proven track record here as the CEPF program has been running for some 10 years now. Can you share a bit on mechanisms that you suggest from your work with the CEPF and all of these amazing initiatives for tracking progress and monitoring progress over the long term? Well, yes, I think they're actually at the moment developing the new modern community evaluation plan with key indicators and targets. But for phase one, based on the ecosystem profile that was developed back in 2010 to guide that first phase of investment from 2011 to 2016, they would have had very clear indicators and targets so that they generally three or four strategic directions which focus on things related to biodiversity and ecosystem services, looking at landscape level change and promoting corridors to actually allow for an ecosystem sort of based management indicators around sustainable livelihoods because one of the key things on the CEPF is nature for people and not nature or people and so trying to really focus on enhancing sustainable and resilient livelihoods based on the natural resources and the services that are provided within these areas. And then also there's a target around partnership building to really strengthen the work and the collaboration between civil society and other key partners in government and private sector. And so all of that's generally outlined in the profile and then used to then guide the development of a very clear sort of monitoring, evaluation plan with very specific targets and indicators. And that is developed in a consultative process. As I mentioned, there were a lot of stakeholders involved in developing the profile. And so it's highly consultative and that then guides the work that Canary is the regional implementation team as well as the regional advisory committee which I should have said is made up of national and other representatives from all of the target countries as well as experts who provide obvious resources and services for the review and oversight of the fund. And that all helps with monitoring and evaluation. And so I mean, I can always find out more from the actual project managers and what the project manager for this to kind of answer that question around monitoring and evaluation. But we really look at doing a sort of participatory process for that and that also builds in learning and adaptive management to that really document and track what is working and what's not to really inform us as we move along. Wonderful. Two more quick questions. Now you mentioned the idea of homegrown intermediaries which was quite interesting. Can you share some advice for how this model could be leveraged or replicated in other contexts to support LLE? Oh, certainly. So I mean, one thing that we have kind of been looking at through another sort of GCF actually readiness project that we're working on with several NGs in the Karycon region is also thinking about and aware of this civil society organizations particularly at the national level that can serve that role potentially as intermediaries or implementing partners for work. And so for example, in the work that we do there are a number of national trusts, for example because we work a lot on sort of conservation and they are national trusts in many of the islands in the Caribbean that are very strong and actually have very clear procurement processes have managed in the grants of 10 million US or more. And so they're very well placed, I think to be able to serve that role of sort of a homegrown local intermediaries. And so it's not that Canary alone is one of the only CSO that has that capacity. I think there are many others and it's something for us to really consider when we're looking at potential intermediaries and implementing or delivery partners for work on the GCF, adaptation fund, et cetera that we look at similar organizations as potential partners. Excellent, it would be great to say, I love that. And if there was even sort of a I'm sure there must be some sort of mapping of all of those CSOs that can really fit into that level as intermediaries. And then of course, the last question that I want to ask I think I just very quickly is as I asked to Marianne as well as your thoughts on finance and how might some global climate funds need to change their access criteria to allow funding to flow to many of the CSOs that you're supporting in the Caribbean? Yeah, so that's, I mean, that's been, I guess, billion dollar question. So, I mean, I think, you know, many people have highlighted the sort of onerous application sort of processes and the time of all of the poops and requirements that you have to jump through. And I think the shift that we're seeing with a number of the bigger funds like the adaptation fund and the green climate fund looking at how they can set up what they're calling enhanced direct access mechanisms which are really on granting mechanisms that allow regional or national entities within the countries to really sort of create a sort of tailored facility that allows for the sort of small, medium, large grants to be given out that really match the capacities of different CSOs in the region and allows them to get funds through a more simplified process because obviously a small grant for a million dollars you're not going to require people to go through the same very detailed sort of application process and requirements. Although obviously you still have to do your due diligence as Marianna very nicely outlined what they do for Planca Fund and ensure that that money is being used effectively. But I think it's also important in thinking about that financing. And I think this is where the CPF model is quite interesting. It's to also remember that along the financing you need to have that capacity building support because we can't just assume that all these entities are ready to just kind of roll out some of these funds. I think we need to really support them through learning by doing as they're actually rolling out some of these grounds to do that effectively and actually build up their processes so they can actually go on to doing larger grants over time and really scale up the kind of financing and work that they can do. And I think that will have real impact as we move forward.