OREANDA-NEWS. With support from the African Development Bank (AfDB), The Gambia has been granted US $1.5 million under the Climate Investment Funds’ Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (CIF PPCR) to prepare a national Strategic Program for Climate Resilience (SPCR). Through the SPCR, the country will develop a double-edged set of solutions for its climate vulnerability, identifying programs to implement resilience actions while at the same time reducing barriers that exacerbate climate vulnerability. The Plan will be developed with support from two Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), the AfDB as lead agency and the World Bank.

One of Africa’s five most densely populated countries, the principally rural Gambia faces increasing negative environmental and economic impacts from climate change, with serious damage from windstorms and flooding, and sea level rise increasingly creating threats. The country is also very prone to regular drought, which impinges on its agricultural productivity. In response, the Government (GoTG) has embedded mainstreaming climate resilience as one of the key pillars of its ambitious Vision 2020.
To support activities that would help holistically mainstream climate concerns into its national development agenda, the GoTG applied for participation in the PPCR and was one of a handful of countries selected in a second round as a new PPCR pilot country in May 2015. Funding from PPCR will strongly bolster the country’s Vision 2020 policy framework and help create projects to address food and livelihood security, bring coastal infrastructure to a climate-resilient standard, and create an effective enabling environment to mainstream climate resilience. This will include a stronger national institutional coordination mechanism with clearly defined roles, communication, and stakeholder ownership.

“We are pleased that The Gambia has received PPCR’s approval for this funding, and will now be able to advance its ambitious plans to create a fully climate-resilient economy,” said Olagoke Oladapo, AfDB’s Task Team Leader for The Gambia’s program. “Protecting the country’s coastal zone and advancing climate-smart agriculture opportunities are vital to its economic, social, and environmental well-being. With the SPCR being coordinated by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and a full program to engage stakeholders across the spectrum, including the rural people most affected by the increasing climate impacts, we believe that The Gambia will create a powerful bulwark for its successful future.”
Specific elements of the SPCR are:

  • Institutional capacity building across sectors: Assessment and support to institutional capacity requirements for climate resilient coordination, planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting; assessment of climate change impact on natural resource sectors including migration and vulnerable hotspots, improving climate information systems and disaster risk management;
  • Data collection: Supporting collection, analysis and application of national hydro-meteorological data; improving access to and uptake of climate information and services into decision-making;
  • Gap analysis: studies in the following areas to feed into development of the SPCR:
    • Greening coastal infrastructure study
    • Weather index insurance study
    • Assessment of climate resilient livelihood options
    • Climate vulnerability study in the 10 regions
  • Financial assessment: Assessment of investment needs (financial resources) to implement the SPCR;  
  • Community-based approaches: Supporting natural resources management through community-based approaches to watershed management;
  • ICZM: Support for management of the coasts in a changing environment – climate-aware Integrated Coastal Zone Management and support to reduce coastal erosion.

With a joint multi-disciplinary mission planned for August 2016, the Gambia intends to submit the final SPCR to the PPRC governing body for endorsement in May 2017. Gambia joins 29 other countries throughout the world, including 9 in Africa, as PPCR pilot countries.