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Experts scrutinize ACPC agenda on climate change data, water and agriculture
ECA Press Release No. 42/2011
Addis Ababa, 13 April 2011 (ECA) - A three-day workshop is underway in Addis Ababa with some 50 experts expected to identify key gaps in the existing knowledge on policy formulation as regards, Climate Data and Information, Climate Change and Water, and Climate Change and Agriculture, according to the Director of the Food Security and Sustainable Development Division of ECA, Dr. Josué Dioné.
According to the Information and Communication Service of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the workshop is organised by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) to
“articulate activities and outputs of a focused and effective ACPC work plan”, in accordance with the goals and objectives the Climate for Development (Clim-Dev) Africa programme.
Dioné told the opening session of the workshop that the interactive effects between climate change and agriculture are not always positive for Africa, but that the continent’s “relatively untapped, yet threatened water resources could be harnessed to build greater resilience to climate change”.
“Climate Data and Information, Climate Change and Water, and Climate Change and Agriculture are high on the priority list of what ACPC is expected to focus on, because of the crosscutting importance of the first and the crucial place and roles of the last two in Africa’s quest for the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development”, he explained.
He called on participants to identify relevant partnership opportunities that can assist the ACPC in implementing its work for knowledge generation and sharing, advocacy and consensus building, and technical advice and cooperation.
He underscored the result-oriented context in which ECA’s efforts are aimed at addressing climate change, that is, the quest for sustainable development.
“In this regard, ECA co-organized with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in October 2010 the Seventh African Development Forum (ADF-VII), which focused on addressing climate change for sustainable development in Africa,” he said.
Within a people-centered development perspective, the Forum brought together over 1,000 stakeholders from government, private sector, civil society, academia and research, and development partners to discuss and build consensus around more than
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50 action-oriented recommendations.
Most of those recommendations were aimed at tackling climate change for sustainable development in Africa under 12 thematic areas, including climate science, monitoring, assessment and early warning, climate change, agriculture and food security, and climate change and infrastructure development with emphasis on water and energy, Dioné recalled.
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He implored participants to think of the security of water as an instrument for social investment and development, as a factor of production, and as an asset for mitigating economic and human losses.
Turning to agriculture, a sector that Dioné described as “vital for food security, income and employment”, he called the participants to view the domain “not only through farming but also as potential value-chain growth linkages to the industry and services sectors.”
He cited the NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), as a reference that could guide the participants in their deliberations on climate change.
“We at ECA are partnering with the AUC to promote the development of regionally-integrated value chains of strategic food and agricultural commodities in Africa. And climate change is clearly a defining factor in mapping of the optimal belts for such commodities, as well in crafting the necessary policy, institutional and investment interventions for the development of their value chains”, he reassured.
The first plenary session of the workshop was dominated with presentations on the different activities of ACPC by its core team, lead by the Coordinator of the Centre and the water specialist, Messrs Youba Sokona and Seleshi Bekele respectively.
Participants are from as wide a field as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO); the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar Senegal; the Office of LDC Programme & Regional Coordination; International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) of Columbia University in New York; the Climate Change Adaptation Unit at UNEP.
Others agencies attending include: the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW ); Global Water Partnership; the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, USA; the African Development Bank ; the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS); the Presenting Institute (UK); and the Stockholm Environment Institute, etc.
It would be recalled that the ACPC was established with the hope that the Centre quickly becomes a credible knowledge hub, capable of effectively contributing towards poverty reduction and sustainable development, through successful adaptation to, and mitigation of climate change impacts in Africa.
Issued by:
ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251-11-551 03 65 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org Web: www.uneca.org
