The Government of Eswatini, through the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs requested support from CBIT-GSP for an in-country training with Eswatini national experts to improve their understanding of the ETF, methodologies for reporting and to build their technical capacity on the development of smart indicators and targets for NDC as part of their global support for countries in transitioning towards the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. 

The training workshop was officially opened by Mr Bafana Simelane, the CTCN Focal Point from the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Department of Meteorology He expressed his appreciation for the technical support provided by CBIT-GSP and UNEP CCC. He applauded national stakeholders for attending the workshop and emphasised the importance of this training in building the country’s technical capacity appealed to them to take advantage of this training to build the country’s institutional and technical capacity and enhance transparency not only for reporting to the Paris Agreement but also to inform and influence policy direction and implementation of climate action for desired national outcomes.

The in-country training workshop was attended by over 31 national stakeholders with 52% representation by women and 48% by men representing government departments, parastatals and private sector with some of the sectors represented being Energy, Waste, Forestry, Disaster Risk reduction and Management to mention just a few. The training workshop introduced national stakeholders to the ETF and the reporting modalities under the Paris Agreement and provided national experts with critical information on the available tools and methodologies for reporting and tracking under the ETF. Sectorial experts received hands on training on the development of SMART indicators for NDC tracking and filling of the Common Reporting Tables (CRTs). 

The training also assisted Eswatini to do a self-assessment exercise to assess its readiness to meet the December 2024 deadline for the submission of the first Biennial Transparency Report using the BTR roadmap Tool. As such, stakeholders were able to highlight the various institutional challenges, barriers and capacity needs that were critical to strengthen and enhance national readiness to meet the demands of the ETF.