NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Kenya is one of the African countries that are keen on implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) with a hope of reducing the greenhouse gas emission by 32% come the year 2030 compared to the business-as-usual scenario

The NDCs are the climate action plans and commitments by individual countries under the Paris Agreement on climate change. The main aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, while adapting to the impacts of the changing climatic conditions.

In Kenya, the NDC is extremely important because the country’s economy is deeply intertwined with climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and energy. Prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, and rising temperatures have significantly affected crop production, food security, and livelihoods, particularly among the rural population.

“In this country, climate change is estimated to cost between 3% to 5% of GDP annually – this really hampers us and makes it difficult for the country to take the opportunity to give its citizens the services they require,” said Michael Okumu of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Climate Change Directorate during a workshop a UNDP in Nairobi.

So far, Kenya has developed several policies that will be instrumental in implementation of the NDC. The National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) III 2023 – 2027 for example, is the third five-year plan that presents the detailed priority actions that Kenya will embark on to address climate change in the medium-term planning period and contribute to the achievement of our NDC under the Paris Agreement.

According to President William Ruto, the government of Kenya is keen to continue implementing the Climate Change Act (No. 11 of 2016), which provides the framework for compliance with the Paris Agreement, and Kenya’s (2020) updated NDC.

“The Climate Change Act is central to our climate actions at both the national and county government levels,” said President Ruto in a statement. “It is important to note the progress made by county governments in the last five years in the enactment of county-level climate legislation that establishes Climate Change Funds and ward climate change committees, and provides for allocation of a minimum percentage of development budgets to finance locally-led climate actions,” he said.

The National Adaptation Plans (NAP) is another policy instrument that seeks to identify medium- and long-term adaptation needs, informed by the latest climate science.

Kenya’s NAP process objectives are to highlight the importance of adaptation and resilience building actions in development, and to integrate climate change adaptation into national and county level development planning and budgeting processes.

The process is also used to enhance the resilience of public and private sector investment in the national transformation, economic and social and pillars of Vision 2030 to climate shocks, to enhance synergies between adaptation and mitigation actions in order to attain a low carbon climate resilient economy, and as well to enhance resilience of vulnerable populations to climate shocks through adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies.

According to the UNDP, countries can utilize the NAP process and its outcomes to update and improve the adaptation elements of the NDC, which is a central part of the Paris Agreement.

Through Kenya’s NDC document which was submitted to the UN on 28^th December 2020, the country seeks to abate greenhouse gas emissions by 32% by 2030.

The country also aims to ensure an enhanced resilience to climate change towards the attainment of Vision 2030 by mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the Medium-Term Plans (MTPs) and County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) and implementing adaptation actions.

Kenya is committed to enhancing its adaptation ambition by committing to bridging the implementation gaps which include enhance uptake of adaptation technology especially among women, youth and other vulnerable groups, while incorporating scientific and indigenous knowledge, as well as strengthening tools for adaptation monitoring, evaluation and learning at the national and county levels, including non-state actors.

The country also seeks to enhance generation, packaging and widespread uptake and use of climate information in decision making and planning across sectors and county level with robust early warning systems, and through exploring innovative livelihood strategies for enhancing climate resilience of local communities through financing of locally-led climate change actions.

However, according to Hillary Korir, of the National Treasury, Kenya, NDC is ambitious and will require significant amounts of funding.  So far, the country does not have a dedicated budget for climate change.

He noted that there was lack of unified approach for tracking & reporting of climate finance flows, and that there was need for capacity to originate and design innovate climate change related proposals.

PAMACC News - Hurricane Beryl’s trail of destruction in the Caribbean reinforces the need for the newly created loss and damage fund to be able to respond quickly to climate disasters.

It also highlights the importance of more effective long-term support for small countries on the frontline of the climate crisis, so they don’t spiral further into unsustainable levels of debt.

Like Africa, countries such as Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada have suffered tragic losses from the hurricane – the earliest Category 5 storm on record for the Atlantic.

While it’s too early to put a value on the destruction, a disaster like this has the potential to wipe out a significant portion of an individual country’s annual economic output.

At last year’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai world leaders celebrated the operational phase of the loss and damage fund, although the design is yet to be finalised. Beryl has given a visceral demonstration of why administrators must be nimble, providing easy access to support in the lead up to – and aftermath of – these kinds of disasters.

In Beryl’s case, official warnings issued a week ago predicted its path through parts of the Caribbean. In reality though, there needs to be a significant investment in long-term measures to help frontline communities prepare for these disasters.

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) principal researcher, Ritu Bharadwaj, said: “Hurricane Beryl is a brutal example of what loss and damage looks like.

“The immediate damage bill will be immense, but there will also be a significant long-term economic cost because of the time it will take to rebuild. And we’re just at the start of this year’s hurricane season.

“Getting the design of the loss and damage fund right will be critical to anticipating and responding to these kinds of disasters in the future.

“The international community needs to ensure that Hurricane Beryl and future storms don’t compound the debt burden facing many small island states.”

IIED has advocated for several measures to ensure the loss and damage fund is nimble enough to respond to major climate disasters, including immediate help for affected communities along with support for longer-term resilience.

In May, the leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) endorsed a plan aimed at alleviating crippling levels of debt while also building economic protections.

Part of the plan involves parametric insurance and pooling risk, so that individual countries are not overwhelmed each time a climate-related disaster strikes.

IIED has developed a toolkit to help measure the readiness of a country's existing social protection programmes to deliver climate resilience.

DAKAR, Senegal (PAMACC News) - Nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa will struggle to feed themselves in the June-August 2024 lean season, according to the March 2024 Cadre Harmonisé food security analysis released by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS).

This figure represents a four-million increase in the number of people who are food-insecure compared to the November 2023 forecast and highlights a fourfold increase over the last five years. The situation is particularly worrying in conflict-affected northern Mali, where an estimated 2,600 people are likely to experience catastrophic hunger (IPC/CH phase 5). The latest data also reveals a significant shift in the factors driving food insecurity in the region, beyond recurring conflicts.

Economic challenges such as currency devaluations, soaring inflation, stagnating production, and trade barriers have worsened the food crisis, affecting ordinary people across the region with Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Mali being among the worst affected.

Prices of major staple grains continue to rise across the region from 10 percent to more than 100 percent compared to the five-year average, driven by currency inflation, fuel and transport costs, ECOWAS sanctions, and restrictions on agropastoral product flows. Currency inflation is a major driver of price volatility in Ghana (23%), Nigeria (30%), Sierra Leone (54%), Liberia (10%), and The Gambia (16%).

West and Central Africa remain heavily dependent on imports to meet the population's food needs. Still, import bills continue to rise due to currency depreciation and high inflation, even as countries struggle with major fiscal constraints and macroeconomic challenges.

Cereal production for the 2023-2024 agricultural season shows a deficit of 12 million tons, while the per capita availability of cereals is down by two percent compared to the last agricultural season.

“The time to act is now. We need all partners to step up, engage, adopt and implement innovative programs to prevent the situation from getting out of control, while ensuring no one is left behind,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP’s Acting Regional Director for Western Africa. “We need to invest more in resilience-building and longer-term solutions for the future of West Africa,” she added.

Malnutrition in West and Central Africa is alarmingly high, with 16.7 million children under five acutely malnourished and more than 2 out of 3 households unable to afford healthy diets.  In addition, 8 out of 10 children aged 6-23 months do not consume the minimum number of foods required for optimal growth and development.

High food prices, limited healthcare access, and inadequate diets primarily drive acute malnutrition in children under 5, adolescents, and pregnant women. In parts of northern Nigeria, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in women aged 15-49 years is as high as 31 percent.

"For children in the region to reach their full potential, we need to ensure that each girl and boy receives good nutrition and care, lives in a healthy and safe environment, and is given the right learning opportunities," said UNICEF Regional Director Gilles Fagninou. "Good nutrition in early life and childhood is the promise for a productive and educated workforce for tomorrow's society. To make a lasting difference in children's lives, we need to consider the situation of the child as a whole and strengthen education, health, water and sanitation, food, and social protection systems."

In response to increasingly growing needs, FAO, UNICEF, and WFP call on national governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to implement sustainable solutions that bolster food security, enhance agricultural productivity, and mitigate the adverse effects of economic volatility. Governments and the private sector need to collaborate to ensure that the fundamental human right to food is upheld for all.

In Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Niger, millions of people now benefit from national social protection programs supported by UNICEF and WFP. Both agencies are expanding their support to the Chad and Burkina Faso governments. Similarly, FAO, IFAD, and WFP have joined forces across the Sahel to increase productivity, availability, and access to nutritious food through resilience-building programs.

"To respond to the unprecedented food and nutrition insecurity, it is important to mobilize for the promotion and support of policies that can encourage the diversification of plant, animal, and aquatic production and the processing of local foods (through the provision of agricultural inputs, access to productive resources for all to stimulate increased production and improve product availability)" said FAO Sub-Regional Coordinator for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr. Robert Guei.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Environment experts are touting the REDD+process as one of the most promising opportunities to address the most compelling challenges of climate change in Africa.

However the question by stakeholders on the accessibility of REDD+ finance at scale if countries deliver on their promises and how capacity building will be supported to address expectations from it, lingers on.

It is against this backdrop that the African Forest Forum (AFF) and the UN-REDD Programme are co-organizing an innovative four-week long Community of Practice (CoP) approach, “to catalyze a good understanding of REDD+ finance types and sources, as well enhance knowledge of the result-based financing architecture including carbon markets and associated standards, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, other financial instruments supporting the REDD+ process in Africa,” says a press statement from AFF.

The CoP approach that will run from 15 April to 10May, 2024 accordingly, will integrating both web-based discussion and a series of webinars on the theme “Unlocking sustainable solutions for effective REDD+ Result Based finance in Africa.”

The discussions are expected to bring to fruition the exigencies of designing REDD+ Strategies with a wide national lens and efforts to acquire financing, according to the release.

“It will  help to explore opportunities to support countries in deepening their engagement with forest carbon markets, that could contribute to harnessing carbon finance as part of their National climate Action strategy.It aims to ensure a comprehensive and insightful exploration of the critical dimension of REDD+ process and finance, stimulate experience sharing among community members, invited guest speakers and experts. The sharing of country and experiences and learning from other members of the community will better improve understanding of the REDD+ process” the release stated.

According to UN REDD+, many countries in the Africa have made tireless efforts to integrate REDD+ into their National planning policy and financing processes. Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia, among others, recognize investments in key sectors of the economy and the need to realign investments in these sectors to REDD+. Through an analytical mapping exercise related to land-use investments, Cote d’Ivoire has been able to re-align investments to REDD+. Ethiopia has positioned REDD+ in its Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy and Zambia has integrated REDD+ into the implementation matrix of its 7th National Development Plan.

The CoP discussions on REDD+ process accordingly will provide unprecedented opportunity to engage in dialogues at continental and national scale to weigh into what type of policies and measures based on the discussions around the drivers of forest changes, are needed within REDD+ Strategies and how these can be achieved.

Among other expectations, the discussions the release notes “will, enhance knowledge of the REDD+ process and the implementation status in Africa,improve understanding of the importance of REDD+ finance within the framework of the financial instruments for nature-based solutions to climate change,improve understanding of the REDD+ finance types and sources including public upfront finance and results-based finance,equip participants with knowledge of available forest carbon markets (compliance or voluntary),enhance understanding of different carbon schemes and standards (such as the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), ART-TREES, LEAF process etc) as well as requirements including costs.”

The African Forest Forum is an association of individuals with a commitment to the sustainable management, wise use and conservation of Africa’s forest and tree resources for the socio-economic well-being of its peoples and for the stability and improvement of its environment.

It provides independent analysis and advice to national, regional and international institutions and actors, on how economic, food security and environmental issues can be addressed through the sustainable management of forests and trees.