What implications does climate change have for sustainable development, and lifting African people out of poverty? This report and associated policy briefing highlights the urgent need to integrate climate information and knowledge into broader development efforts.
A number of country case studies illustrate, among others,:
- climate information is most effective when integrated into multidisciplinary decision-making frameworks
- reducing climate-related risks requires multi-level stakeholder coordination and communication
- climate information must be credible if it is to be used in decision making
- reinforcing and sustaining climate observation networks is essential
- innovations for managing climate-related risks are being developed and deployed
The report’s major recommendations to policy makers are:
- recast climate as a ‘development’ issue. The economic implications of climate-related risks must be made clear. The potential of climate information and services to improve the management of risk should be established
- encourage institutional innovation. African ‘centres of excellence’ should create networks and partnerships that can develop and implement innovative CRM programmes. Investing in ‘boundary institutions’ can help to bring climate information to bear on sectoral planning, and these institutions can act as intermediaries between scientists and decision makers or between climate specialists and sectoral managers
- orient meteorological services towards achieving development outcomes. Governments are urged to provide new resources where necessary to reorient national meteorological services towards sustainable development outcomes
- strengthen research in support of climate risk management. Strategic and applied climate research has a key role to play in improving CRM. Also needed is sector-specific research to improve sectoral decision making under climate uncertainty
- promote systematic knowledge sharing. Inadequate knowledge management systems are leading to critical information gaps, and this must be addressed with better funding, improved partnerships, and more concerted knowledge sharing.