Consultative Meeting for the Southern and Eastern Africa Sub-Regions on the African Union Climate Change Strategy

I. Background

Africa is experiencing unprecedented times as evidence of warming over land regions and frequency and intensity of extreme events are increasing . The recent IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 oC indicates that climate impacts would hit hard Africa and Small Islands States compared to developed world . The report further specifies that global warming of 1.5 oC could result into reduction in crop yield, increased multiple risks, and could trigger greater proportion of people susceptible to poverty.

Over the past decade, frequencies and severity of natural disasters have increased across Africa and have caused major economic, environmental, and social losses with huge impacts on vulnerable and marginalized groups. Africa is also experiencing slow onset disasters with long-term impacts to economies and to the People. The projected impacts will significantly affect the Continent’s productive sectors, particularly water resources, agriculture, land, energy, health, trade, tourism and the natural resource base, causing major economic, ecological and social impacts that can significantly undermine efforts to achieve the aspirations of Agenda 2063.

The Africa Union Commission continues to steer efforts in dealing with multiple environmental challenges including climate change, by engaging both regional and global partners in promoting and defending the continent’s interest.

A landmark Summit Decision was adopted in January 2009, which mandated the AU Commission to facilitate the building of a Common African Position on Climate Change in preparations for the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. Subsequently, the July 2009 Summit in Sirte, Libya adopted the recommendations of the Decision of the Executive Council and adopted the Decision on Climate Change (EX.CL/Dec.500 (XV) Rev. 1). The Decision requested the Commission, in collaboration with partners, to elaborate a comprehensive African strategy on climate change, including development of sector technical back-up data on the impacts of climate change, its cost to the economy and the amount of carbon sequestered in various African ecosystems.

In light of the above, the African Union Commission attempted, during the last few years, to formulate a continental Climate Change Strategy to guide support to AU Member States in a more coordinated, coherent and strategic manner. Accordingly, AUC produced a draft Climate Strategy in 2014 and presented it to the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) and to the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) for consideration and endorsement. However, due to time lapse before the document was finalized, it was recognized that the draft document needs to incorporate the provisions of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Accordingly, in 2018 to 2020 AUC has engaged Member States and Development Partners to develop the updated African Climate Change Strategy taking into consideration relevant information from the existing draft, the Paris Agreement, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The first updated draft strategy has been made available to relevant stakeholders, which made the necessary comments of which member states requested further consultations to improve the draft strategy. In accordance with the African Union process of decision, the draft African Climate Change strategy would require further inputs from stakeholder for final comments and validation. The present concept note aims at providing details of the targeted workshop.

II. Overall goal

The overall goal of the workshop is for Member States, and other stakeholder to review the updated draft African Climate Change Strategy ready for adoption as the final African Climate Change Strategic document to the African Union.

III. Objectives

The overall objective of the workshop is to review the updated draft African climate change strategy, which will serve as a guide for the continent to minimize greenhouse emissions and to build resilience from the adverse impacts of climate change.
Specifically, participants will:

improve the quality of the draft strategy through participatory review of the draft and provide feedback on the extent to which the realities at country level are adequately reflected
Provide inputs to the draft Logical Framework of the draft Strategy
Validate targets, timeframe, baseline and indicators of the strategy
Review the strategic pillars of the strategy and identify relevant climate change actions