ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Mainstreaming climate information and climate information services into legislation and development policies in different African countries is the main driver for the much needed actions in the fight against climate change, experts have said.

It is against this backdrop that parliamentarians from African countries joined a training workshop that came immediately after the sixth conference on climate change and development in Africa (CCDA-VI) in Addis Ababa-Ethiopia.

 “This training is geared at setting the scene for lawmakers to factor climate information issues in budgetary allocation in their countries,” said Thierry Amoussougo of Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) who presided over the workshop opening on behalf of the secretary general, Carlos Lopez.

The workshop accordingly focused on building capacities of decision makers in the use of climate information and services for long term planning and decision making in African countries.

“We are looking at strategies and approaches that can be implemented by lawmakers and governments to ensure climate change policies are mainstreamed into development planning and actions in different African countries,” said Stephen Mutimba, managing director of Camco Clean Energy-Kenya and lead trainer at the workshop.

Participants were drilled on the concepts of climate information and services, types of climate information and uses, use of climate information in agriculture, infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, urban and special development and sectoral planning.

The workshop also focused on the role of climate information in domesticating international agreements such as the Paris Climate talks, legislation for improving climate information and services, including budgeting and institutional development and also how to mainstream such information and services into laws, plans and policies for better long term decision making.
 
The workshop organizers, the African Climate Policy Center of the ECA, pointed out that the training is in recognition of the disproportionate effects of climate change impacts, such as droughts, floods and other extreme weather events on women and youths.

“These vulnerable groups access climate information services differently from the rest of society, thus climate information services, with pro-active targeting where possible, need to be integrated throughout climate interventions for the benefit of women, girls and the youth, “ says James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge, ACPC-ECA.

Presenting the training guide on climate change titled “Climate change solutions”, the managing director of Camco-Clean Energy in Kenya said, it was a rich working tool replete with useful information on the intricacies of climate change, especially in the area of availing climate information.

“Climate information refers to climate data that is obtained from observations of climate (temperature ,precipitation from weather centers)and also data from climate model output. It entails the transformation of climate related data together with other related information and data into customized products such as projections, forecast, information, trends, economic analyses, counseling on best practices, development and evaluation of solutions and other services in relation to climate that are useful to society,” the guide explained.

Challenges
The question of adapted infrastructure in many African countries to tackle climate challenges was also raised by law makers. According to some parliamentarians, human skills and other requirements were necessary for the production and delivery of climate information and services.
“There is need to not only build the capacities of the required human resources but also to invest in adapted climate information infrastructure and the create the enabling environment for the different institutions involved in climate information delivery,” said Chalikosa Mambalaskylvia,MP from Zambia.

Generally participants at the workshop agreed that appropriate and reliable climate information services in Africa are hampered by lack of capacity building, insufficient finance, limited technical capacity to manage weather information system, systematic processes for packaging, translating and disseminating climate information and warnings as well as the lack of integration with disaster management systems.

The three day workshop also saw the participation of civil society organizations, the media represented by the Pan African Media Alliance for Climate Change, PAMACC, who all identified strategies and solutions to the challenges the youths and women face in accessing climate information services.