YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa have established a framework that will see a rapid implementation of climate change policies in their different countries into practical ground actions.

The peoples’ representatives through the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change, known with French acronym as REPACC say they are now set to bridge policy and actions on the ground that have so far lagged behind in visible climate change projects and infrastructure.

Even with the existence of climate change policies that continue to stay on paper and the creation of institutions that have continued to lay fallow, little or no actions are visible on the ground for most countries in sub-saran Africa, experts say.

“ It is time for action to move climate change challenges in Africa to a new level with adapted infrastructures and skills that will help find lasting solution,” says Cavaye Djibril, House Speaker of the National Assembly in Cameroon.

He said the countries in Africa,most of who submitted their NDCs and signed the Paris Agreement(to quantify climate protection goal) lack the necessary expertise to effect national measures and projects to make climate finance available for the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

African Parliamentarians say they have now got the backing of the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany with the training of the required expertise to formulate , prepare, supervise the implementation of projects to help their different countries adapt to climate impacts.

To that effect, a cooperation agreement was signed in Yaounde on March 27, between the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change to help fast-track measures needed to bridge climate policies into action in the different countries, to speed up the emergence of body of knowledge on climate and the relevant legislation and to manifest the role of parliamentarians in African climate change responses in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, globally, regionally and locally.

According to the President of the Permanent Executive Committee of the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), Cameroonian born, Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the backing of  the German Konrad Foundation now gives African law makers the claws to better push climate policies to action.

“The Pan African Parliament for Climate Change will hence be better armed for actions that will bring m the much expected solutions to climate change challenges,” Awudu said.

Professor Olivier Ruppel, resident representative and director, climate policy and energy programme of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung said technical expertise, financial support with help in the infrastructure development and international cooperation needed by African countries to implement climate change projects on the ground.

Cameroon created the Cameroon Councils against Climate Change, National Observatory on Climate Change in 2011 aimed at monitoring the effects of climate change on people, agriculture and ecosystems, and guiding work on climate action.

Other policy actions have since followed  like the creation of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the ministry of territorial administration, becoming a member of COMIFAC and submitting a national REED+ plan in 2013 etc. But these have not succeeded to hold the line of climate disasters in the country, officials noted.

Like in Cameroon, Parliamentarians in the continent believe with the active involvement of law makers and support from their new partner, the necessary actions including relevant legislation will bring a lasting solution to climate change impacts in the country in particular and  sub-saharan Africa in general.