1. 0
CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND
AFRICAN AGRICULTURE GRANTEE CONVENING
24-25 February 2011
Project Name: Capacity Development for Eastern and
Southern African Countries to Climate Change
Protection and adaptation
Grantee : COMESA
Presenter : Dr. George Wamukoya
2. 1
Brief Background of the Institution
• The Common Market for Eastern and Southern
Africa (COMESA) is one of the 8 Regional
Economic Communities of the African Union.
• It has 19 Member States - Burundi, Comoros,
Djibouti, DR Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda,
Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia
and Zimbabwe.
3. 2
Your other projects/programs on climate
change adaptation
• COMESA/EAC/SADC Upscaling Climate
resilient agriculture in Eastern and Southern
Africa region
4. 3
Objectives of the Rockefeller
Foundation Grant
• Support and strengthen African Group of
Negotiators capability to participate effectively in
the ongoing post 2012 climate change regime
negotiations.
• Initiate early action on Agriculture, Forestry and
Other Land Use (AFOLU) Readiness.
• Institutional strengthening.
5. 4
Key Activities Related to the
Grant
• Facilitate and provide technical support to the African
negotiators.
• Collate and document existing AFOLU related activities
and identify community adaptive responses that could be
shared and applied to build resilience to climate change
from the bottom up.
• Initiate scaling up of AFOLU adaptive responses at the
community level, incorporating MRV parameters, in each
of the target countries.
• support sub-regional cross learning of best practices in
climate change adaptation strategies, practices and
mentoring.
• Provide support to the work of the climate advisor at the
COMESA Secretariat.
6. 5
Highlight on the Progress to date
• Strengthening of Common African Position on
agriculture, forestry and other land use in international
climate change negotiations.
• Stocktaking and documentation of stakeholders and
actor-oriented perspectives for analyzing sustainable
agriculture, conservation agriculture and sustainable land
management best practices in 5 countries - Kenya,
Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
• Initiation of early action in AFOLU Readiness in Kenya
and Zambia by getting the money direct to the beneficiary
community Groups.
7. 6
Early Findings (optional)
• Increased interest on inclusion of agriculture in
the post 2012 climate change international
regime.
• Increased carbon projects in AFOLU.
• Countries willingness to put in place a
comprehensive framework for implementing
adaptation and mitigation actions.
8. 7
Key Challenges
• Integration of climate change across sectors.
• Involvement of parliamentarians in climate
change issues.
• Fragmented adaptation and mitigation actions
being implemented.
• Low adaptive capacity in all the Member States.
9. 8
Lessons Learnt
• The need to deal with cooperative sectoral approaches
separately.
• Because of the special nature of agriculture, its current
treatment in ongoing negotiations under mitigation
undermines its importance in relation to adaptation and
food security.
• Climate change information and knowledge is highly
fragmented making it difficult to support policy and
decision making.
• Countries are implementing adaptation and mitigations in
a highly fragmented manner with little impact to show for
the investment..
11. 10
Next steps
• Strengthening common African position in the
international climate change leading to the seventeenth
Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban, South
Africa – December 2011.
• Assist countries to formulate and implement climate
change response strategies and action plans to enhance
integrated approach to investment in adaptation actions
and NAMAs.
• Enhancing investment in early actions in agriculture,
forestry and other land use (AFOLU) readiness using
market and non-market funds.
12. 11
Status of Agriculture in Negotiations
• Agriculture is not part of the Cancun Agreements.
• This implies that agriculture is not part of the agenda for
the COP17, Durban, South Africa – December 2011.
• However, Parties bring agriculture back into the agenda
through submission at the fourteenth AWG LCA session
scheduled for 3-8 April 2011.
• During the opening session, Parties may raise the issue
under the agenda item OTHER MATTERS.
• COMESA and a several Parties are working on
submission that will ensure that agriculture is brought
back on the table.
