Community Based Adaptation Conference – First Time in Africa!

21-27 February 2010

The 4^th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation (CBA) to Climate Change took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 21-27 February 2010. Almost 200 participants from different regions in over 30 countries attended the conference (Figure 1). The aim was to share the latest developments in adaptation planning and practices, reinforce collaboration between institutions and stakeholders, and promote international community based adaptation and its role in the post-Copenhagen climate change negotiations into national, regional and local policies and development programmes. The stakeholders included various key agencies, sectors, technical experts and researchers from numerous organisations and institutes. To date, there have been very few occasions in which those working on community based adaptation projects have had an opportunity to showcase their programmes, policies, approaches and experiences in this rapidly growing field. The conference provided a necessary platform to demonstrate the significant challenges that communities in Africa are already facing as a result of climate change and increasing climate variability.

Mr Muyungi, a prominent negotiator of the Least Developed Countries group, highlighted the importance and significance of the first CBA conference in Africa, and stated:, “Africa is the most impacted continent, therefore community-based adaptation provides” an opportunity for those communities to be “assisted to adapt to the impacts of climate change’’ and thus increase their resilience to the on-going and anticipated changes. The conference linked what is being done at a global level; specifically post-Copenhagen negotiations, to the realities at the community level.  Muyungi stated that negotiations should be based on practical understandings of climate change impacts on communities, and should be consistent with what is happening on the ground.

Lucinda Fairhurst, the Adaptation Coordinator for ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainablility - Africa Secretariat (AS) was funded by IIED to attend the conference  as well as present on the Africa Secretariat’s Adaptation work in Africa. The conference started with a two day field trip where groups of participants had the opportunity to visit local communities and gain an understanding of how climate variability and climate change are impacting them.

Lucinda’s group visited the hilly and mountainous Mgeta site, located in the Mvomero district, Mororogo region, about 250km in land from Dar es Salaam. This particular site has been subject to environmental changes such as deforestation, land degradation and changes in rainfall and precipitation patterns, all of which threaten agricultural productivity and aggravate existing poverty issues (Figure 2).

A number of farmers were interviewed as representatives of the community that was visited, in an effort to ascertain changes in local environmental conditions (Figure 3). Aside from those environmental changes made above, the farmers are also aware of increasing temperatures; this is evident to them as plum trees that used to grow in the valleys are now only prevalent in the highest regions of the mountains where temperatures are lower.