Djibouti, 10 January 2024 - The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Government of Djibouti have announced a USD 26 million project aiming to build climate resilience in the East African country.
The project targets Djibouti’s Dikhil and Tadjourah regions, which host 20% of the country’s population. For their livelihoods, rural and urban communities here significantly rely on the goods and services provided by wadi ecosystems - impermanent watercourses prone to flash flooding - leading to a process of environmental degradation.
Climate change, both now and projected, further increases the pressures on these landscapes and the climate vulnerability of the communities that live there.
The six-year project, Planning and Implementing Ecosystem-based Adaptation in Djibouti’s Dikhil and Tadjourah Regions, was launched at an opening ceremonial launch event in Djibouti city, the nation’s capital.
The initiative, executed by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, is set to be a flagship approach in Djibouti on the practice of using nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration as a holistic strategy to adapt to climate change - technically referred to as ecosystem-based adaptation - especially in arid landscapes facing desertification.
At the official launch event for the project, Alex Forbes, a UNEP Programme Management Officer, said: “Djibouti is being affected by climate change, with increasing temperatures, changing rainfall distribution, rising sea-levels and increasing extreme weather events resulting in droughts and flash floods. These events negatively impact climate vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and food security and water resources, but also affect urban environments and human health, and in turn livelihoods and the economy.”
The project is addressing the resilience needs of local communities by combining conventional ‘grey infrastructure’ for flood defence, such as weirs and flood walls, with ‘green infrastructure’, which refers to the use of nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration to provide a defence against climate impacts. In this case, the revegetation of the degraded banks of wadi ecosystems regulates and moderates the flow of water, leading a reduction in both drought and flooding.
Experts claim that, for climate resilience, grey infrastructure can be more immediate while green infrastructure is more cost-effective. By combining the two approaches, the initiative aims to obtain the benefits of both.
Following a $8.9 million grant from Global Environment Facility (GEF), combined with $17.1 million of cofinancing from other partners, the project will directly benefit up to 207,000 people (of which over 97,000 are women), while improving and conserving 170 hectares of key ecosystems in support of local livelihoods. Climate-resilient agriculture, ecosystem restoration, flood control infrastructure, and water security interventions will be implemented in an integrated landscape approach.
UNEP and the Government of Djibouti have now worked together on three ecosystem-based adaptation projects in the country, the lessons from which will be brought forward to guide the new initiative.
The UNFCCC Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage highlights the need for UN agencies to address the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations.
For more information about the project, contact Jessica.Troni@un.org
