Africa continues to face challenges, despite the great strides it has taken to alleviate poverty and improve lives. The continent still has a long way to go to achieve sustainable development. Environment is at the heart of all this development and as such, must be taken into account in the development agenda of the continent in implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. The continent must continue to invest in innovative solutions and approaches with the potential to transform lives and which can be implemented at zero or minimal cost.
One way of enhancing sustainability of climate actions is to link them directly to socioeconomic priority areas - food security, job creation, entrepreneurial opportunities, macro-economic growth, etc. This can be achieved by targeting climate actions at catalytic sectors capable of simultaneously unlocking socioeconomic development opportunities and meeting climate objectives. Such an innovative broad approach to climate actions beyond environmental obligation enhances participation of non-state actors including the private sector, academia and ground actors who are critical to mobilizing the means of implementation. Sometimes you do not need to reinvent the wheel, rather, tap into and improve on what you already know or that which exists. Africa may very well have the solutions to its problems, but the biggest constraint in achieving progress lies in gaps in policy processes, financial resources, technology, synergy in implementation frameworks and so forth. UN Environment is helping countries seal these gap, through an innovative programme, the Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security (EBAFOSA).
EBAFOSA is the first inclusive pan-African framework and platform, an institution with protocols, – a constitution and rules of procedure adopted in an inclusive continental process to guide actions that provide a platform for all stakeholders - including governments and their agencies, the public sector, education and research institutions, citizens, international and intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, CSOs, CBOs, etc, to collaborate in a participatory way in developing and implementing policy solutions to upscale EBA-driven agriculture and its value chains to ensure sustainability. It seeks to combat food insecurity, climate change, ecosystems degradation and poverty in Africa using an innovative approach that decentralizes the development and application of policy solutions in the least bureaucratic channel. EBAFOSA provides an optimized channel to implement existing and envisaged grandeur development plans for the continent and strives to ensure impact at the grassroots. Consequently, its principal mandate is to support implementation of the various continental and global blueprints on food security and sustainable industrialization and development, through building on established, ongoing progress, as opposed to implementing projects/programmes/initiatives in siloes where aggregate outcomes will be sub-optimal.
To date, EBAFOSA has been established in 40 countries across Africa, and 10 countries have launched national branches to enhance efficiency and ensure synergy in implementation of EBAFOSA at national levels. Notable achievements at country level include:
- Cameroon has committed to use the EBAFOSA policy framework to mobilize partnerships and deliver a strategic country agenda on “work on climate change & agriculture through working with nature” (SDGs 2, 13 and 17).
- Nigeria has integrated EBAFOSA into the 2015/2016 budget through the Agriculture and Environment pillar of Nigeria’s development blueprint. This will ensure budget allocation for EBA upscaling (SDG 13). Nigeria has also mobilized youth groups to engage in developing an EBA farm to expand reach of EBA site-based actions in Nigeria.
- Kenya, through policy level linkages in the Ministry of Agriculture, has integrated EBA into its Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy (SDGs 2 and 13). EBAFOSA Kenya also included a priority framework to mobilize partnerships in implementing this strategy (SDG 17).
- Mozambique is using project data to facilitate integration of EBA into district, provincial and national food security policies (SDG 2 and 13). Farmers have been trained and sensitized on the benefits of agroforestry. WFP has also pledged to deliver $40 million worth of a school feeding programme through EBAFOSA.
- Zambia has integrated EBA into the Poverty Reduction Strategy, a national policy document on poverty eradication (SDG 1, 2 and 13). EBA approaches of crop diversification are also being replicated countrywide.
The above progress aligns with UN Environment’s programme of work and is evidence of its efforts towards increasing the number and percentage of countries it has assisted to integrate ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) and other adaptation approaches into sectorial and national development strategies. By fostering an inclusive approach that leverages the relative strengths at all levels of a diverse pool of stakeholders, EBAFOSA is, delivering on the provisions of the SDGs and Paris Agreement.
For more information, please contact: Mohamed Atani, Regional Communication Officer, UN Environment, Africa Office, Nairobi, Kenya; Tel: +254 20 76 24235; Mobile: +254 (0)727531253 ; Email: mohamed.atani [at] unep.org
