Africa Adaptation Knowledge Network (AAKNet) endorsed as key tool to step up climate change adaption efforts on vulnerable continent

UNEP News Centre: Around 120 representatives from 60 Africa regional adaptation knowledge platforms and other organizations have boosted climate change adaptation efforts in Africa, one of the world's most vulnerable continents to shifting climactic conditions, by endorsing the Africa Adaptation Knowledge Network (AAKNet) as a key tool for creating a coordinated approach.

Africa is particularly susceptible to climate change for a variety of reasons: its reliance on rain-fed agriculture, limited supply of freshwater, widespread poverty and disease, weak institutions, variable access to information and technology, complex disasters and conflicts, and inadequate access to basic services.

Severe droughts in the Sahel in 2012 and the Horn of Africa in 2011 brought into sharp focus the serious impacts of climate change, highlighting that there has never been a more urgent need for stronger adaptation as a priority in providing sustainable solutions to reduce the vulnerability of a great majority of Africa's one billion citizens.

Despite the challenges, there are many examples of adaptation measures that are improving lives across the continent, such as a Global Environment Facility-funded project to restore mangroves in Djibouti that enhanced local income as it tackles coastal erosion....

Image from the UNEP website