Let’s seize the benefits of climate change in Africa

In the East African, Jeff Otieno interviewed the United Nations Development Programme’s Africa Adaptation Programme manager (possibly Ian Rector, could not tell from the source). The entire interview is worth a look: ....Given the list of priorities ranging from improving food security, developing infrastructure to tackling threats of terrorism, should East African governments take the phenomenon seriously?

Regardless of any doubts, governments should take risk management seriously. This means that those countries that have high risk exposure to climate change (based on evidence) will have to take serious action to mainstream within overall policy, planning and practice at all levels. When such an approach is followed, there is no reason why multiple priorities such as food security, poverty reduction, environmental and ecosystems management, for example, cannot be addressed through a comprehensive suite of strategies. The problem in many countries is that these issues are often planned for and implemented separately as ad hoc interventions, when in fact they should be seen as interactive parts of the same development wheel.

Many countries are clearly not even adapted to the challenges presented by the climate we have now, let alone those predicted for the future.

The most urgent priority is for countries to get onto aggressive and sustainable paths of development. If governments are not taking this seriously, with this unmitigated human disaster at our doorstep in the Horn of Africa, then heaven help us. But tragically, this seems to be the case with people blaming the drought or climate change for this catastrophe. What they seem to be saying is that the extreme poverty and vulnerability of these populations is a given, that it is not the fundamental problem and that there is nothing they are prepared to do about that. But blaming the weather is far too easy an excuse, and if we accept it, then we are letting the governments that are responsible for the development of their countries off the hook. Climate change must never be allowed to legitimise inaction or failed development....

From NASA, a side view of the Horn of Africa