Against all odds: How Africa has steered its climate crisis policymaking path… so far
It s broadly acknowledged that women, girls and societies most disadvantaged, are most affected by climate change. Sadly, Africa despite its lesser sins on the issue is one of the worst affected by the climate crisis. Muzondwasi Banda explores some paths Africa has trod to tackle some of its climate policies. (Photo by Akil Mazumder from Pexels)
It all started in October 2013, when more than 300 participants converged at the Arusha International Conference Centre in Tanzania to discuss the state of African climate science gaps and the existing deficits in climate knowledge.
The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), and the University of Dar es Salaam with support from the international Scientific Steering Committee representing a global coalition of climate-focused institutions teamed up to organize ACC2013.
More than eight years later, with mega strides of action achieved, ACC2013 is now etched as a milestone in Africa’s climate history.
It was a rare congregation of diverse experts in climate science research, applications, and policy bringing together decades-old and young experiences as well as practical solutions on managing, interpreting and translating climate knowledge to facilitate smart decision making in agriculture, food production, water resources management, disaster risk reduction health, and adaptation planning.
Climate Research for Development in Africa (CR4D) initiative emerged as an outcome of the resolutions of the Arusha summit. This African-centric initiative was born with an aim of socializing climate science through an interactive and collaborative approach. CR4D collates climate science, services and policy-making under a coordinated network of diverse disciplines, expertise and institutions to collectively address associated challenges while maximizing on the opportunities presented by climate change and variability to socio-economic development in Africa.
The founding partners of the CR4D included the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), which acts as its secretariat, ClimDev-Africa, African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET), World Meteorological Organisation, and the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) alongside a cross-section of the African climate community and stakeholders.
Dr. James Murombedzi, who heads the ACPC recalls:
“The 2013 Africa Climate Change Conference recognized the significant under-representation of African perspectives in climate science. The global response to climate change was being structured on data and analyses from elsewhere, while African scientists were facing various constraints, including limited funding, limiting access to data, limited weather observation infrastructure, and so forth.”
“In response the ACC2013 proposed CR4D as an African led initiative to not only increase African analyses of weather and climate data, but also to increase the contribution of African perspectives in the Inter-Governmental Panel of Climate Change process and the construction of the global climate governance regime,” he adds.
In 2015 CR4D was officially inaugurated at the Third Session of the AMCOMET, held in Praia, the capital of the Atlantic Ocean archipelago of Cape Verde.
With mandate from the top decision-making organs of the AU and the UN, the CR4D Secretariat complete with an all-inclusive governance structure revolving around a tripartite management framework that has an Oversight Board (OB), Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and an Institutional Collaboration Platform (ICP) was firmly established.
The CR4D secretariat is domiciled at the Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) in the UN-ECA Complex in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Climate knowledge to support sustainable development, as well as capitalizing on emerging opportunities, formed the basis of ACC-2013 plenary discussions and solutions deliberations. The time for Africa to improve its own climate forecasting models, capture local adaptation successes and incorporate grassroots knowledge to come up with its own solutions to climate change could no longer wait.
In establishing the CR4D initiative, these components of entrenching knowledge to conjoin policymakers, inform decision-making processes and inform end-users adequately, appropriately and on time was the driving force.
“The strategic decision for investing in climate research for development is in recognition that in the past climate too often has been a separate narrative from that of development. The recent events around COVID-19 have underlined more than ever that we cannot separate the way in which we tackle climate change from the way in which we look at development on the continent.” Jean-Paul Adam, the climate change director at the Economic Commission for Africa says.
“We cannot tackle poverty; we cannot tackle access to energy or even access to education and universal health, unless we are tackling climate change, because climate change is arguably the greatest threat that faces our continent.”
the utilisation of CR4D as Africa’s climate research leadership and coordination special purpose vehicle for defining research agenda, capacity building, policy support and intellectual leadership including knowledge sustenance to the global climate-related negotiations is now a reality.
