ROTTERDAM (GCA) – The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) announced that it is providing technical advisory support to a new African Development Bank program in partnership with the Government of Ethiopia. The aim of the program, Borana Resilient Water Development for Improved Livelihoods (Phase 1), is to provide access to climate-resilient and gender-sensitive integrated and sustainable water and sanitation services to pastoralist communities in dryland areas of the Borana area of the Oromia region in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country and the third-largest economy in Eastern and Southern Africa. Climate change in the form of higher temperatures and more frequent and more intense droughts and floods is impacting the population in the Borana region resulting in extreme water scarcity and devastating floods, poor pasture productivity and growing food insecurity. Interventions to date have been piecemeal, unsustainable, and reactive leaving communities with no viable water management infrastructure even as water scarcity continues to get worse with frequently changing rainfall patterns.
GCA will work to strengthen the climate resilience of planned water services such as wellfields, livestock water troughs and community-led water physical and biological soil and water conservation measures by identifying suitable adaptation measures. To do this, GCA will:
- Undertake an assessment of critical flood, drought and heat-related risks including estimates of changes in temperature and the frequency seasonality and intensity of rainfall to better understand climate-related risks to the relevant Borana watersheds.
- Provide technical assistance to design climate-related risk reduction measures through a combination of grey and green investments.
- Build the capacity of local government to carry out climate risk assessments and monitor and manage project activities.
- Engage with local communities to tap into local knowledge and traditional techniques for water resource management to design an adaptation strategy.
- Carry out a gender vulnerability assessment to ensure the project design and the community engagement strategy addresses gender gaps.
It is expected the program will benefit 24,810 people of which at least 50% will be women. The program is supported within the framework of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) – a partnership between the African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation.
Commenting on the new program, Professor Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation said, “Whilst the water sector in Borana has received significant levels of investment over the past 50 years, climate change means its needs are increasing. This program, undertaken as part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program, will ensure pastoral communities can benefit from climate-resilient and gender-sensitive water services which will help improve their health, protect their livelihoods, and increase their food security. The lessons we learn from this work can then be applied to other areas to ensure we can scale up adaptation quickly and efficiently,”
About the Global Center on Adaptation
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization which works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector. Founded in 2018, GCA operates from its headquarters in the largest floating office in the world, located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. GCA has a worldwide network of regional offices in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire; Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Beijing, China.
Source: GCA