Climate, Land, Agriculture and Biodiversity (CLAB-Africa) - Central Africa Regional Webinar

Posted on June 27, 2022

CLAB-Africa Regional Webinar Series: Central Africa

Climate change is bringing repeated extreme events such as droughts and/or heat waves which adversely affect, among other things, the ability of poor people to cope with crop failures or maintain food security as their savings, productive assets and human capital increasingly diminish.

Africa has the most severe vulnerable hot spots to climate change hence increasing the food and water deficit. Indeed, the interactions among climate change drivers are complex. Owing to this complexity, a holistic framework assessing the various environmental risks is required. Evidence of these interactions is needed, including the role of adaptation and development responses. Assessing environmental dynamics that bring together agriculture, biodiversity, land and water becomes a complex effort, particularly when these elements arise with various sectoral, temporal, spatial, and response-option frontiers. Accordingly, the interaction of various factors may amplify or diminish impacts.

Central Africa is particularly threatened by climate change due to high climate variability, high reliance on rainfed agriculture and limited economic and institutional capacity to respond to climate variability and change (Sultan and Gaetani 2016). Climate change is exacerbating already large inequalities in the region.

The Central Africa Regional Webinar sought to elevate Africa’s specific knowledge as it specifically relates to climate change, land, agriculture, and biodiversity responses which may support the arguments of African States and development institutions in their various negotiations and policy framework discussions. 

Watch the recording here

The CLAB –Africa Project is led by University of Pretoria, Future Africa Institute, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It aims to provide a platform for Africa’s leading scientists to engage Africa’s political leadership on the varying catalytic sectors to address the continent’s wicked challenges in this regard. The Project is structured along four thematic areas focusing on: (i) climate change impacts on food systems; (ii) people-animals-ecosystems health and wellbeing; (iii) land restoration and biodiversity and (iv) land-water-energy resources use.

- Author Shiela Chikulo

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