With a 58 per cent likelihood of an El Nino occurrence in Africa - according to the most recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast - almost 300 policymakers and ecosystems experts convened in Nairobi where they backed no regrets ecosystem-based adaptation preventative measures as the first step towards building resilient societies and averting the impacts of climate change disasters in.
The workshop on enhancing the Horn of Africa Adaptive and Responsive Capacity to Climate Change Impacts was set against the backdrop of recent severe droughts in the Sahel in 2012, and the Horn of Africa in 2011. The droughts have exacerbated food insecurity due to issues such as resource depletion, degradation of ecosystems, population growth, water scarcity and natural disasters.
The more than 300 delegates shared experiences, successes, challenges and lessons learnt on targeted ecological actions that provide opportunities for addressing climate change disaster impacts in Africa and identified key challenges and bottlenecks hindering the scaling-up of ecosystem-based adaptation practices, and how they can be overcome in the midst of the looming El Nino/La Nino events.
Ecosystem‐based adaptation provides flexible, cost effective, and broadly applicable alternatives for building robust food systems on less inputs and reducing the impacts of climate change.
One successful example shared of ecosystem-based adaptation measures was the Zaï Pit technique, which consists of digging pit holes in which a mixture of soil and manure is placed to help improve the infiltration of runoff water during the rainy season. Using this technique in the Sahel has resulted in reduced water erosion; over 500 per cent increase in crop yields and improvement of both the physical and chemical property of the soil.
The delegates - including representatives from regional economic communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, academia and others - adopted recommendations calling for:
- The extension of ecosystems' functions for human well-being, and the adoption and up-scaling of no regret adaptation solutions; especially ecosystems-based adaptation actions that can build both biophysical and social resilience of communities for coping with the predicted erratic events.
- Governments and regional bodies to institutionalize no regret adaptation and preventive measures, especially ecosystems-based adaptation approaches, such as ecological agriculture, into national policy frameworks for building resilience against impacts of recurrent el Niño/ La Niña, and other extreme weather and climate events.
- All African countries to develop funding guidance frameworks and a clear implementation plan to support ecological initiatives in the short, medium and long-terms to avert such climate risk to unprecedented levels.
- All stakeholders and organizations including regional and national governments, NGOs and the private sector to work towards an integrated approach in managing all cycles of local, national and regional scale disasters and climate change impacts.
- The African Ministerial Conference on Environment to adopt the recommendations of the workshop on Enhancing the Horn of Africa Adaptive and Responsive Capacity to Climate Change Disaster Impacts.
- The promotion and use of inexpensive technologies that have already proven themselves in Africa, and which can greatly reduce the effects of extreme weather events, such as farmer-managed natural regeneration of trees for re-greening landscapes; green manure/cover crops for restoring soil fertility; fertilizer trees to restore soils and shade crops; dispersed fodder trees in fields to improve crop production, maintain soil moisture and feed animals that otherwise would die after drought years; water harvesting to improve yields and prevent crop losses from drought; and soil cover to prevent erosion and soil nutrient burn-off.
