A study on 'Climate Public Expenditure Review' (CPER) conducted jointly by the Indus Consortium and Oxfam Pakistan has suggested that there should be a separate budget head on Climate Change (CC) in all provinces including Punjab to adhere to the climate change related work in the province.
'Thus this will make easier to track the allocations, utilization and efficiency around climate change related work in the provinces. For better tracking of climate change public expenditures, a revised chart of accounts (CoA) is a dire need in present times. This revised CoA will identify the unified budgetary heads for climate change in all relevant departments for national as well as provincial level,' the recommendations of the study added.
The Study urged that major chunk of funding should be allocated for climate change adaptation in agriculture, livestock, fisheries, poultry, irrigation and forest department. The role of small farmers, community groups should be enhanced at local level in project implementation as ownership, transparency and sustainability should be enhanced.
Reviewing the Annual Development Plans (ADPs) of the Punjab for Financial Year (FY) 2015-16 and 2016-17, the study claimed that there were 3,973 schemes in total for FY 2015-16 out of which 2,613 (66 percent) schemes are CC related while following year, out of total 4,830 schemes, 3,210 (67 percent) schemes are CC related. In both years, most of the CC related schemes lie in social sector (73 percent in FY 2015-16 as compared to 71 percent in FY 2016-17) followed by infrastructure development (62 percent in FY 2015-16 as compared to 71 percent in FY 2016-17). However, the study said that significant increase in CC adaptation increase had been observed in environment sector in Punjab where 50 million rupees were allocated last year out of which only Rs 10 million were CC related allocation but in year 2016-17, CC related allocation is 99 million which shows 890 percent increase as compared to last year.
Nevertheless, the study recommends though the new schemes in agriculture sector sounds encouraging, but as Punjab is the biggest source to provide agri products to the whole of the country, so there is a need to invest more in agriculture improvement and research for avoiding food security situation in the country and meet more agrarian exports demand.
The allocations should be increased in agriculture sector in general and small farmers in particular. The subsidies and support should be given to small farmers through provision of seeds, inputs and machinery. Separate budget should be allocated for the training of small farmers with regard to knowledge on climate smart technologies, seed varieties, climate resilient strategies and proper timing of crop cultivation. The provincial government should promote and encourage innovative modern agriculture technologies, organic agriculture practice, diversified cropping supported by research, support institutions and budget allocations.
Informal workers are more vulnerable to climate change as compared to formal workers. In this regard, women's role should not be ignored. The study regretted that data on women's ownership as small workers is still not available and all the relevant development projects should have small farmers and gender cross cutting theme.
It further suggests that the gap between the allocations for infrastructural development and the allocations redressing or contributing in the adaptation in the face of climate change impacts needs to be narrowed down. Biannual or annual monitoring system should be in place to ensure effective spending on specified allocations and performance of line departments at district level.
Last but not the least, the study urged for including climate change adaptation and mitigation in the act of local governments at district levels.