Five Caribbean nations, including Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and Suriname, are set to revolutionize how their governments collect, manage, and leverage climate data for national development and policy decisions, thanks to a newly launched US$6.75 million regional initiative. The three-year Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) officially kicked off with a gathering of stakeholder representatives in St. George’s, Grenada, marking the start of a coordinated effort to strengthen climate action across the region.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the project is implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and executed by the Partnership Initiative for Sustainable Land Management (PISLM), in close collaboration with the governments of the five participating countries. A public statement from PISLM outlines that the CBIT project will build national capacity across several critical climate action areas: tracking greenhouse gas emissions, assessing national climate risks and vulnerabilities, monitoring progress toward meeting countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and centralizing data on climate financing and international support for climate action.
Trevor Thompson, Head of the Project Implementation Unit, speaking on behalf of PISLM Executive Director Dr. Ronen Francis, noted that functional transparency systems should serve more than just international reporting requirements. “A transparency system that works is a planning instrument, a governance instrument and a reporting instrument,” Thompson explained. This framing aligns with the project’s broader goal of making climate data usable for domestic decision-making, rather than only fulfilling global reporting obligations.
Grenada’s Minister for Climate Resilience, the Environment and Renewable Energy, Hon. Kerryne Z. James, emphasized that long-term success of the new systems depends on national ownership. “The systems we create must ultimately belong to us. Our people must understand them, our institutions must maintain them, and our governments must use them,” James stated, underscoring the importance of embedding the transparency framework within local governance structures.
The project follows a four-phase implementation framework: Design, Build, Use, and Maintain. A total of 39 key deliverables are planned over the 36-month timeline, with the majority of GEF funding allocated to developing and rolling out the national transparency systems. Project Officer Reene Smith, speaking on behalf of Permanent Secretary Peron Johnson, added that centralized, accessible climate data will allow governments to accurately measure progress on climate targets, identify unaddressed gaps in action, justify requests for additional climate resources, and refine policy decisions to better meet national climate goals.
UNEP Project Specialist Frederico Alejandro Geli echoed the call for national ownership, noting that the project’s success will hinge on “the engagement and ownership of each of the five countries.” Geli called for sustained national leadership and institutional support to embed the new systems into long-term governance. The core objective of the CBIT project is to establish nationally managed transparency frameworks that align with the Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework, while also creating space for cross-border exchange of technical expertise and climate solutions between participating nations.
Technical implementation is scheduled to begin on 1 October 2026. The first phase will kick off with national consultations to map existing climate data needs, identify current data sources, and flag gaps in current climate information management, before national plans for system improvement are developed. Closing the official launch event, Chief Technical Advisor Cheryl Jeffers noted that the gathering was only the starting point for the initiative, and encouraged ongoing regional collaboration to meet shared climate goals.
Beyond meeting international transparency requirements, the ultimate aim of the CBIT project is to turn climate data into actionable insight that supports stronger climate policy, more effective implementation of climate action, and improved climate resilience across all five participating Caribbean countries.