Adaptation to climate change: a Priority and Crucial Issue for Africa

As a consequence of the resulting high climatic variability, Africa's inhabitants have developed highly effective strategies to cope with drought since the region became semiarid some four or five thousands of years ago (Andah, 1993; Casey, 1998). Much has been invested in Africa in terms of capacity building, but more is needed to enhance the adaptive capacity of institutions, organizations and individuals (Denton et al., 2001).

In spite of the low adaptive capacity of Africa, people have developed traditional adaptation strategies to face the great climate interannual variability and extreme events. Those communities, who have faced harsh environmental conditions over prolonged periods, have consequently been trying, testing and adopting different types of coping strategies. Rural farmers have been practicing coping strategies and tactics, especially in places where droughts recur, and have developed their own ways of assessing the prospects for favourable household or village seasonal food production (Downing et al., 1989).

In Senegal and Burkina Faso, locals have improved their adaptive capacity by using traditional pruning and fertilizing techniques to double tree densities in semi-arid areas. These help in holding soils together and reversing desertification. Similar community-initiated projects in Madagascar and Zimbabwe have been acclaimed successes (ECA, 2001). Other coping strategies include economic diversification, reliance to forest products, local governance of natural resources, land management, water harvesting, etc.