Addis Ababa, 18 May 2013 (ECA) - Climate change has been identified as one of the key issues that the forthcoming global development agenda will actively seek to address. At the regional level, an African Common Position on Climate Change that was presented at the Joint Conference of Ministers of Economy, Planning and Finance in Abidjan in March this year will go to the AU Summit this month for endorsement, before it is presented at the UN General Assembly in September 2013.
According to reports from the final Africa-wide consultation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda which was held in Tunis, also in March this year, policymakers from around Africa agreed that any post-2015 development framework that replaces the MDGs must take full account of the impacts of climate change.
They agreed that climate change impacts could obliterate most economic gains that some African countries made in the last two decades.
Experts regularly cite the agricultural sector which is mostly rain-fed and on which about 80 percent of the rural population depend as having been particularly hard hit. They say that as a result of frequent weather extremes and inadequate capacity to adapt, the direct effects of climate change have been severe on crop yields.
“Adaptation to climate change is primarily a private-sector response and should involve relocation of people, changes in the sectoral structure of production, and changes in crop patterns”, according to reports.
“Adaptation is impeded by Africa’s fragmentation into small countries and ethnic groups and by poor business environments”, they add. On the other hand, mitigation exercises, especially through the design of emissions-trading frameworks are few and far apart.
Global warming is also projected to have significant impacts on human security as people move from devastated regions to settle in the less affected zones. In other regions of Africa draughts and floods have become unpredictably frequent and severe, causing untold damage to small and large scale farmers alike.
Health, livelihood assets, food production and distribution channels have been negatively impacted as well. Assessments of the economic effects of global climate change on Africa all suggest Millions of Dollars lost each year.
The Climate for Development in Africa Programme (ClimDev-Africa Programme) is working to harmonise the African response to climate change. It is an initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) that was established in 2009.
Following the Tunis consultation, the clock towards the submission of Africa’s proposals has begun to tick. The first timeline was at the end of March 2013, when an African Common Position will be presented at the Joint Conference of Ministers of Economy, Plan and Finance held in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire. Anticipation is high, that at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the AU, the draft position will be endorsed.
Meanwhile, the institutions leading the process - AUC, ECA, AfDB and UNDP - will continue to ensure that outcomes of national consultations held between April and May feed into regional and global reports.
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