What is my message?

At this point I would like to briefly summarise the message I intended to bring across in the postings of the past few months. 

• Environmental change affects the poorest countries in the world and structural inequalities lock their vulnerability into a vicious circle. I have illustrated that this is especially the case in Africa, where climate hazards lead to food insecurity , health threats, sea level rises and increased water scarcity.

• In this blog I have addressed the two fundamental forces that can drive Africa forward in the face of climate change: the combination of climate change adaption and sustainable development strategies. 

• Green growth supporters claim that Africa has the opportunity to adopt sustainable development strategies, as for example the creation of renewable energy sources. Even though I also see potential in this vision, much more funding will be necessary in order to make climate conscious development a reality.    

• Since water is the primary entity through which climate change impacts ecosystems, livelihoods and development, this natural resource requires special attention. Agricultural adaption strategies are all concerned with the interplay between climate and water, finding solutions to this unpredictable interplay holds the key to increased food security. 

• In the course of this blog I addressed three main climate change adaption strategies, namely 1) Water management 2) Adaptive Soil Management and 3) Climate Risk Reduction

• 1) Water Management: Even though there are various ways in which water management could be made more climate resilient (improved infrastructure, IWRM, more efficient water systems etc.) I focused on one innovative water management strategy (small-scale rainwater catchment system), which holds potential for building resilience against unpredictable climate events.

• 2) Adaptive Soil Management: The future road towards improved soil fertility that is resilient to climate change consists of two important steps. First, information systems that assess soil quality. Secondly, technical responses to these assessments: This will include the implementation of soil specific techniques as well as diversifying nutrient sources.

• 3) Financial Climate Risk Reduction: In this section I presented a ‘weather – index insurance’ scheme that could serve as a community – based risk reduction strategy. The successful implementation of such a project shows that this might be another promising avenue for building up resilience on the local level. 

• I started this blog thinking that green growth and grassroots climate adaption would be two completely different, even contradicting answers to the challenge of environmental change. While green growth would only focus on economic development and technological progress with more sustainable means, climate adaption would try to preserve what has been working in the past for the future. However I learned that both concepts entail a much more complex variety of solutions, and that they should go hand in hand. Green growth can happen through adaption strategies (e.g. climate resilient crop intensification) and adaption strategies can only be enabled through green growth investments.

• I believe that the ‘Roadmap’ for Africa’s prosperous as well as climate resilient future should start with policy initiatives in several areas, including: 

- Policies reducing inequality to escape the vicious cycle of inequality – climate change - vulnerability

- Policies facilitating climate adaption strategies (e.g. encouraging investments in climate adaption)

- Policies focusing especially on the natural resource of water and related challenges (e.g. Integrated Water Management)

- Policies improving assistance for small scale farmers and communities when faced with climate hazards: enabling interventions for disaster risk reduction (improved climate information systems, improved infrastructure)