Experts urge Africa to build resilience to withstand climate change

ADDIS ABABA, March 15 — Experts and policymakers attending a climate adaptation-themed meeting have called on African countries to urgently build climate resilience to address “staggering” human development and economic costs of climate change. They made the call during the Sixth Africa Climate Resilient Investment Summit, which was jointly organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Union (AU) and the World Bank Tuesday and Wednesday in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, the UNECA said in a statement issued late Wednesday. Iain Shuker, regional director for Sustainable Development for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank, stressed in the meeting the urgency to scale up climate adaptation efforts to build climate resilience in Africa. Shuker noted that the African continent hosts two-thirds of the 50 countries most vulnerable to climate change worldwide.

He cautioned that inaction to address climate resilience in Africa could result in a loss of up to 19 percent of the gross domestic product and a 7.5-percent increase in poverty headcount rate by 2069, and drive up to 13.5 million people across the Sahel region alone into poverty. Mama Keita, director of the UNECA Sub-Regional Office for Eastern Africa, said that infrastructure development in Africa, which is at the heart of the continent’s sustainable and inclusive development agenda, needs to embrace addressing climate resilience. The director said Africa’s infrastructure development efforts form the foundation for sustained industrialization, trade and regional integration, food security, resilient cities, and vibrant ecosystems. She underscored the need to accelerate Africa’s climate-resilient infrastructure development efforts while also boosting confidence in the mobilization of finance from the private sector to close the continent’s huge infrastructure gap. Experts and policymakers attending the high-level summit underscored that to effectively address the negative impacts of climate change in Africa, climate change adaptation strategies need to be integrated into wider national policies and planning processes. They also stressed the need to put in place strong collaborations among all involved actors, according to the UNECA.

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