African islands meet to address climate change and disaster risk challenges

ClimDev-Africa: Representatives of African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have convened here for a two-day workshop to develop a collaborative framework for support to address the challenges of climate change and manage disaster risks.

The workshop is being held at the UNECA Headquarters under the auspices of the Climate for Development Africa (ClimDev-Africa) Programme, a joint initiative of the African Union Commission (AUC), the Africa Development Bank (AfDb) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)  ‘s  African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) a unit of the UNECA’s Special Initiatives Division (SID), which serves as the Secretariat for the ClimDev-Africa programme responsible for establishing the policy basis of the joint initiative.

The workshop aims to provide African SIDS with support to address the urgent challenges posed by climate change and seize opportunities in emerging areas related to the transition towards blue and green economies that are aligned to development aspirations.

The gathering is a follow up to a scoping mission to Cabo Verde, Union of the Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Mauritius, Seychelles and, São Tomé and Príncipe, undertaken by ACPC upon request from the African SIDS. The mission assessed their climate change adaptation and mitigation needs; identified priority interventions aimed at building country resilience to climate change and the means to address residual loss and damage. Africa’s six SIDS are highly vulnerable to climate change and related extreme weather-induced disasters that make it difficult for them to attain their development goals....

Shot of the Seychelles by Anse Takamaka, Mahé, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license