African countries need robust climate change policies

Government of Ghana website: There is the need for African countries to formulate and implement robust policies, to mainstream climate change adaptation and mitigation into national and sub-national development plans.

Dr Lamoudia Thiombiano, Country Representative, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, who made the call, also said there was the need for these countries to increase public and private investments in agriculture and rural transformation. He was speaking at the ongoing 2nd Climate Change and Population Conference being hosted by the Regional Institute of Population Studies (RIPS), University of Ghana, Accra.

Dr Thiombiano asked African countries to develop database with modeling and early warning and monitoring systems and called on the academia to play major role in helping to identify, promote and disseminate relevant agricultural technologies with ecosystem approaches.

He also called for increased collaboration between development partners, donors and research institutions, adding that these actions would help to address climate change issues that had become so real in most parts of the world, including Africa.

...Dr Thiombiano said the Sahel, the Mediterranean, Southern Africa and parts of Southern Asia were becoming drier, which called for ecosystem approach to capture the synergies and manage the trade-offs among food security, sustainable development, environmental sustainability and climate change....