While Africa has contributed negligibly to the changing climate, with just about two to three percent of global emissions, it stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region in the world. This vulnerability is driven by the prevailing low levels of socioeconomic growth in the continent. While climate change is global, the poor are disproportionately vulnerable to its effects. This is because they lack the resources to afford goods and services they need to buffer themselves and recover from the worst of the changing climate effects. This is the case in Africa. To this end, UNEP Africa office’s climate change work in the region focuses on supporting countries to put in place a structure for implementing their climate action commitments – popularly known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in a manner that meets leading socioeconomic priorities – food security, creation of income and enterprise opportunities for the youth and economic expansion.
This is achieved through driving climate and environment action as an investment opportunity and a source of socioeconomic improvement that is championed in high level member states policy forums like the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA). This tactic is backed by science and results in knowledge for policy as well as project actions– that have been tested and validated in other countries. In this approach, mitigation and adaptation are considered as complementary, with mitigation interventions primarily in clean energy aligned to power adaptation mostly in land-based actions like agriculture. This is opposed to classical approaches where mitigation and adaptation actions are considered largely in standalone silos. This approach also aligns to ensure Article 7 and 9 of the Paris Agreement that call for “parity between mitigation and adaptation” is realistically achieved on the continent.
Interventions focus on the following areas:
Project actions to inform and validate climate action trajectories that maximize environmental and socioeconomic benefits in the long run
Project actions are undertaken to test concepts and demonstrate valid trajectories that countries can invest in so as to drive their climate actions in a manner that unlocks leading socioeconomic priorities. The following are among the key projects:
EU-UNEP Africa Low Emissions Development Project: UNEP worked with seven countries to demonstrate empirically how NDCs implementation through amalgamating mitigation and adaptation actions can unlock both climate / environmental benefits and socioeconomic dividends, simultaneously. This work also shows countries how they can leverage analytical tools to forecast the long-term climate (change) and socioeconomic impacts of alternative NDCs implementation trajectories. And by this, ensure policies prioritise investment areas that maximise both climate and socioeconomic benefits. Through this work in just seven countries, results were used to call for a continental-wide shift at the highest level of continental environmental policy– the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN). The shift of NDCs implementation policy approaches towards the maximising of climate and socioeconomic benefits simultaneously, catalysed continental wide demand driven transition to low emissions development pathways.
For more information: https://www.africaleds.org/
Supporting Implementation of the NDCs in the Waste Sector in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal: waste is a critical source of emissions and is prioritised in multiple NDCs across Africa. Through this project, we are supporting two countries – Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, to develop tools and strategies that catalyse increased investments in implementing waste NDC priorities in a manner that simultaneously mitigate against dangerous emissions from waste, while also unlocking priority socioeconomic benefits. Through this work, countries have been supported to strengthen policy framework to reduce GHGs and Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) in the municipal solid waste sector. They have also been supported to enhance technical and operational capacity for data monitoring, reporting and verification in the waste sector to ensure investment in areas that mitigate the most prevalent waste emissions while unlocking income opportunities.
Lessons covering critical strategic, market and enterprise aspects that are highly adaptable to inform investments in other streams of waste recovery have been generated. These are being used to inform non-capital-intensive waste recovery investments of waste recovery areas that youth can invest in. More specifically, waste recovery to biofertilizer and to domestic fuel briquettes. These will provide crucial data and lessons to further inform enabling policy and operational actions that will bring in more youth across the continent to drive waste NDCs in a way that will substitute high emitting chemical fertiliser and the charcoal industries in the region.
NDCs Action Project: providing technical support to three countries – Ghana, Morocco, and Uganda to translate their NDC commitments into actionable implementation strategies capable of attracting implementation investments. This is to ensure that country NDCs can attract market driven investment by diverse groups that constitute African economies - including the youth, informal sector actors as well as formal corporations and drive implementation while also generating empirical data to feedback to relevant policy implementation programmes and ensure prioritisation of incentives on areas proven to work. Knowledge, experiences, and innovative lessons from the three countries are also cross-hybridized and shared continent-wide.
National Adaptation Plans (NAPS) readiness project: countries (Eswatini, Nigeria, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Lesotho etc) are being supported to put in place structures and plans of action for dynamic adaptation planning that takes into account the dynamic nature of adaptation needs in context of their national development priorities, vulnerabilities and NDCs implementation prioritization. This planning establishes an adaptation baseline. It then narrows down priority areas, then works with the countries in formulating the relevant policy, institutional frameworks, partnerships, technological and technical capacity needs that will need to be in place to ensure most effective national adaptation planning and implementation investment in the long run.
Read more: https://www.africaleds.org/
Supporting countries to establish interagency policy taskforces for policy coherence towards optimal NDCs implementation
These policy innovations are to ensure implementation of policies across different line ministries incentivizes harmonious sectorial actions that meet both NDCs and development objectives. This is particularly critical because while the environment ministries are the custodian of environment action including reporting back progress to the UNFCCC, substantive actions that can impact environmental progress are undertaken under the leadership of other ministries such as the ministry of agriculture, energy, forestry, health, trade and industry etc. Work across these ministries therefore needs to be harmonized towards driving the NDCs. The Ecosystems Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA) policy-action initiative, provides an inclusive framework in line with section five of the Paris Agreement, to convene diverse actors drawn from different sectors for collaborative actions that drive NDCs implementation. EBAFOSA, being a countries driven framework, also provides a platform by which UNEP project actions that have demonstrated climate and socioeconomic benefits can be taken up by additional countries and integrated into ongoing actions of diverse stakeholders, and done with ongoing UNEP technical backstopping and guidance. In this way, EBAFOSA enhances the sustainability of UNEP project actions as it enables the sharing of lessons from a given project to be taken up by stakeholders across different countries that were not direct beneficiaries of a given project.
Read more: https://ebafosa.org/
Youth skills retooling to take up climate action as an opportunity to offer impactful solutions to society
Africa’s population is over 60 percent youth, making them the most significant nonstate actor constituency on the continent in terms of numbers. Our work prioritizes tapping into the intrinsic abilities of their energy, creativity, skills and talents to drive climate action while unlocking opportunities for them. To this end, through what we call “Innovative Volunteerism”, we are working with youth, by guiding and inspiring them to retool their skills, talents, ongoing work and interests and to work collaboratively towards opportunities in driving NDCs from an enterprise dimension – whilst focusing on clean energy and sustainable agriculture, which are priority economic and climate sectors of the continent. We are guiding the youth towards using existing enabling policies and to developing and integrating these climate solutions into their ongoing work and enterprises. Through this, they can then drive NDC implementation further, while obtaining practical, inexpensive productivity solutions and creating opportunities for themselves.
For example, we are guiding youth towards training on waste-recovery to wealth. They are integrating waste recovery to fuel briquettes and biofertilizer solutions, which are non-capital-intensive opportunities, into their enterprises. Youth are tapping markets by providing effective and affordable alternatives to contemporary non-sustainable solutions of charcoal and chemical fertilizers. Fuel briquettes are not only as affordable as charcoal, but burn better, do not catalyse deforestation nor produce smoke and cause indoor pollution, like charcoal does.
Youth are also being guided to train and develop mechanical solar dryers that dehydrate and preserve food in line with national standards benchmarks without producing emissions. These dryers convert postharvest losses to incomes. They are also made from locally available material, proving to be up to 200 percent cheaper than imported solutions. Other youths have developed ICT digital marketing systems that enable agro-value chain actors to efficiently access markets and supply chains from the comfort of their homes, on their phones. Through these value addition solutions, income increases of up to 150 percent have been registered at both farm level and at the post-farm gate.
Science and Knowledge to inform Policy
As a leading knowledge institution, our work continues to prioritise research and generating new knowledge on optimal ways in which the environment can be leveraged as a source of practical socioeconomic solutions. Our work continues to focus on how nature-based and waste solutions, all being sub-sets of climate action, can help countries drive their socioeconomic objectives while ensuring climate resilience.
Work contributes to internal strategic opportunities in supporting Member States in meeting their pressing priorities and deal with emerging issues. As an example, the COVID-19 emergency has provided opportunities where knowledge, drawn from work experiences in the region and new knowledge has been used to make a case in formulating an institutional response to member states, of how the Informal sector in Africa can be leveraged as the foundation for rebuilding better, different more resilient economies in the region.
Key publications:
In addition to direct engagement on emerging issues and pressing priorities, over the years, publications drawn from experiences and successes of climate action work in the region also continue to inform policy towards prioritising investments and application of climate action and nature-based solutions for socioeconomic progress. Among leading publications include:
- Africa Adaptation Gap reports 1: exploring scientific rigor and policy relevance to provide an overview of the crucial challenges for adaptation to climate change in Africa over the coming decades to century: https://bit.ly/2ONYuol
- Africa's Adaptation Gap 2: Exploring options for addressing finance needs at international, regional, and domestic levels : https://bit.ly/313k22r
- Keeping Track of Adaptation Actions in Africa report: the report illustrates the future situation of Africa under climate change and the adaptation actions in place: https://bit.ly/3raFjlm
Driving normative to position climate action as a practical source of key socioeconomic solutions for countries
The leading priority of countries across the continent is to actualise their socioeconomic aims – food security, creation of income and jobs for their youth, and macroeconomic expansion. Positioning climate action as a source of these solutions provides a basis for increased investments by countries. Therefore, this catalyses a demand-driven transition to climate resilience and low emission development economies. Our work in the region has been leveraged upon as a basis and source of empirical validation of how climate action can drive adapted solutions. We work with Member States, through providing knowledge and evidence- based information that inform debate and drive adoption – on high level policy decisions of climate action as an investment and source of socioeconomic solutions. This is achieved through the technical support that is provided to Member States through key intergovernmental forums such as the African Ministerial Conference of the Environment (AMCEN) and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).
