Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Initiative

Africa is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. But appropriate climate-related information and the policies to use the information effectively not well developed in Africa. African leaders and development partners are thus intent on having and using appropriate climate information to promote economic development planning. The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) a joint initiative of the African Development Bank, the Commission of the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, responds to this need. ClimDev- Africa has received strong political endorsement from AU heads of state and government, African Ministers, several key stakeholders and the International Community.

ClimDev-Africa consists of three components. First, building the capacity of African climate institutions to generate and widely disseminate climate information necessary for planning. The goal of this component is to ensure that reliable, useful and useable climate- related data are generated and made widely available to policy- makers, policy support organizations and the general population on the continent. Second, enhancing the capacity of end-users, particularly national development policy-makers, to be able to mainstream climate change into development plans on the continent. Third, implementing adaptation programs and projects that incorporate climate-related information so that we can learn the lessons and define good climate change adaptation practices.

The African Development Bank is supporting ClimDev-Africa through two related initiatives. First, to address the first component of ClimDev-Africa, the Bank is financing a $30 million institutional support project designed to strengthen the institutional capacities of four African regional climate centers: the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), the Agro-meteorology and Hydrology Regional Centre (AGRHYMET), IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) and the Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC). This support will enhance the technical ability and expertise of African climate scientists to generate the necessary climate information to assess climate risk and quantify climatic trends.

The project will also generate climate risk assessments of vulnerabilities and impacts on the continent; improve regional climate forecasts and outlook forums, and down scale climate scenarios and projections appropriate for development on all scales. This information is fundamental to planning.

By providing, upgrading and rehabilitating physical infrastructure and networks, the project will improve the delivery of climate services in Africa. These centers will serve as Africa’s regional hubs for the Global Framework for Climate Services, endorsed at the 2009 Third World Climate Conference.

Second, the Bank has endorsed the creation of the ClimDev Africa Special Fund, a multi-donor facility to finance ClimDev-Africa activities, estimated at about $135 million between 2010 and 2012. Donors have expressed interest in supporting the fund and a donor-pledging meeting will be convened in early in 2010. The ultimate beneficiaries will be those rural communities with climatesensitive livelihoods, especially, rain-fed farmers, food insecure communities, communities vulnerable to malaria and other climatesensitive diseases, communities dependent on uncertain water and other natural resources, communities at risk of disasters, and communities with poor energy access. The first call for proposals is expected to be made by the second quarter of 2010.