African small island developing states

Starting from 2014, ECA through its African Climate Policy Center (ACPC) commenced a programme to support the African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in reviewing their vulnerabilities to climate change adverse effects, and to devise robust response strategies that reduce exposure of its people. After carrying out missions to the 6 African SIDS where staff of ACPC met with government officials and other stakeholders, assessment reports for each country were prepared. ACPC is currently designing the support programmes for the African SIDS, using the fledgling climate information services in the islands as an entry point.

Scoping missions done in all African SIDS were in response to requests from African SIDS, and were completed in Cape Verde, Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Mauritius, Saõ Tomé and Principé and the Seychelles, in order to:

• Assess the country climate change adaptation and mitigation needs;
• Identify priority interventions aimed at building country resilience to climate change and address residual loss and damage;
• Discuss with government authorities as well as other key stakeholders to identify the gap;
• Agree on modalities and collaborative framework for ECA support.

Key findings from the six African SIDS indicate high vulnerable to climate change, both to extreme events like cyclones and to slow onset processes like sea level rise.  These changes are set to worsen over the next century and all SIDS will require support in order to assess and address the resulting loss and damage. 

While they share common characteristics of insularity and geographical disparity as well as small populations their vulnerability is not uniform they have varied experience of climate change and capacity to address them.

Comoros, Guinea Bissau and Saõ Tome and Principe are all LDCs while Cape Verde, Mauritius and the Seychelles have higher levels of development as well as policies and better mechanism to address climate change.