A Low Emission Climate Resilient Development Programmeme (LECReD) begins today in Laamu Atoll. This programme was inaugurated by the Minister of Environment and Energy Mr. Thoriq Ibrahim. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony he stated that we have already been experiencing signals of climate change and these need to be considered as warnings and that these warnings are telling us to get prepared for what is to come. The LECReD programme is designed to address the issues of climate change in a more holistic manner and with a more collaborative effort. Overall objective of the low emission climate resilient development (LECReD) is to support low emission climate resilient local development in Maldives. It will achieve this by taking an atoll-based approach, focusing on Laamu Atoll, and supporting local decision makers and planners at both the island and atoll level to integrated climate change and disaster risk management considerations into local development planning and to create an enabling environment needed to develop a low emission climate resilient community in the Laamu atoll. The programme aims to mainstream climate resilient issues into local level development planning and service delivery for greater community-level ownership and sustainability of programme benefits. LECReD is designed to be implemented with the joint effort of many UN agencies. The strategic approach of the joint programme is to build on the corporate and local comparative advantages of the participating UN organizations in order to leverage the extensive skills, knowledge and operational experience of the UN County Team. This joint programme will work with local and national partner organizations, drawing on their skills and capabilities, whilst further enhancing their capacities where appropriate. The programme is funded by the Government of Denmark under a grant assistance to address the issues of climate change in Maldives. A grant assistance of USD 9 million was given and the programme to be implemented in 3 years. The programme is to be executed and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Ministry of Environment and Energy as the Government Focal Ministry. Government stakeholders, UN agencies, Atoll and island council participated in this inauguration ceremony.