Dr Mats Eriksson, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

The negotiators of the UNFCCC continue to discuss with stoic persistency the management pathways for the future of our planet. Meanwhile, as this slow and cumbersome process continues, incremental steps are taken on the African continent towards increased capacity to respond to the adverse impacts of climate change.

This impact will primarily strike through alterations in the water cycle. In North and West Africa for instance, as well as along the entire Sahel, this is seen as a decrease in the total amount of rainfall paired with greater uncertainty in the onset of the rainy season. As a result the society has to struggle with greater uncertainty and unreliability in access to sufficient water resources. Disasters as the recent famines in the Horn of Africa are predicted to become even more common headlines in the world news in the future.

However, the adverse impact on water resources with cascading effects on all sectors is being met with efforts to strengthen the capacity of African institutions to meet the challenges. In Durban the Southern African Development Community (SADC) took the opportunity to launch its new strategy on climate change adaptation in the SADC region, which explicitly target water resources as being the main bearer of change between climate and the society.

On the Pan-African level, the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) is taking up the challenge through pushing the preparation of a “Framework for water security and climate resilient development” using the Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) as a channel. This framework is intended to be a tool for decision makers to support increased and improved adaptation interventions to changes in the climate and its variability.

Strategic frameworks as these do of course by no means ensure improved adaptation capacity in themselves. However, they are important and fundamental stepping stones towards building greater climate resilience in the society. These frameworks need to be paired with comprehensive capacity building programmes and with increased efforts to more efficiently channel funds for adaptation.

The latter is a topic that permeated the discussions in Durban. In this context it was stressed that capacity has to be built on existing institutions, as well as on informal local knowledge close to where adaptation interventions ultimately must take place.

At the other end of the institutional scale, we find regional institutions such as river basin organisations and institutions facilitating economic cooperation. A challenge for adaptation frameworks that are currently being developed, is that they have to be instrumental in supporting adaptation at all scales; from local, via national, to regional, including transboundary water basins as an important dimension for building resilience.

Another important topic cropped up repeatedly in meetings and side events in Durban is the worrying worldwide trend in reduced capacity to collect hydro-meteorological data. It seems to be increasingly difficult to allocate sufficient amount of funds to continually monitor these parameters. This is particularly disturbing since the world is increasingly relying on meteorological and hydrological modeling for the preparation of future scenarios on water availability. If the current trend of erosion of hydro-meteorological monitoring schemes continues, it will be increasingly difficult for decision makers to access reliable facts and figures for underpinning important decisions on how to develop the society in a climate resilient way. Positively, the understanding about this shortcoming seems to be increasing, and that made it to the UNFCCC corridors in Durban.

Although Africa still has a long way to go towards a climate resilient and water secure development, it is also encouraging to notice the almost constant presence of water resources as a topic in ongoing climate related discussions and deliberations. It seems as if professionals of all sectors are gradually coming to grips with the fact that sustainable and reliable access to water is actually a prerequisite for development. To this end, finding ways and means to adapt to the adverse impact on water from climate change is fundamental. Let us hope this understanding has come to stay – among climate negotiators as well as project implementers alike.