Climate Risk Management in Finnish Development Cooperation - Gaia

3 Climate vulnerability and adaptation priorities
in Ethiopia
3.1 Vulnerability to climate variability and change
Ethiopia is exceptionally vulnerable 37 to climate variability and weather extremes such as droughts,
floods, heavy rains, frost and heat waves. While the historical social and economic impacts of
climatic hazards in Ethiopia have not been well documented, the existing records on major droughts
and floods (see chapter 2) give a clear indication of the overall high climate vulnerability of the
country. These recurrent extreme weather events have caused huge loss of lives and property,
resulted in migration of people and disrupted livelihoods in different parts of Ethiopia.
Looking at the already experienced climate variability as well as projected climate change, a
multitude of major adverse impacts has been identified, including:
- food insecurity arising from occurrences of droughts and floods;
- outbreak of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, water borne diseases (such as cholera,
dysentery) associated with floods and respiratory diseases associated with droughts;
- land degradation due to heavy rainfall;
- damage to communication, road and other infrastructure by floods;
- shifts in species distributions, increased evaporation and losses of wetlands due to
temperature increase and changes in rainfall patterns;
- disruptions in energy production due to changes in rainfall patterns
Obviously many of the impacts are driven simultaneously by other factors (e.g. land degradation by
deforestation, low agricultural productivity, lacking land ownership frameworks, etc) but the climate
change induces a critical additional stress on already vulnerable livelihoods in many parts in Ethiopia.
The very high dependence on rain fed agriculture, which is very sensitive to climate variability, is one
of the main causes of vulnerability in Ethiopia. The overall underdevelopment of the water-sector is
another critical component contributing to climate vulnerability. Despite the fact that Ethiopia has
substantial water resources, these have neither been developed nor managed well, leaving
populations vulnerable to the destructive impacts of water and climate variability, while not
providing benefits from effectively harnessing the water and land resources.
In addition, several other contributing factors can be identified, such as low health service coverage,
high population growth rate, low overall economic development level, low adaptive capacity,
37 See e.g. Yohe, G., E. Malone, A. Brenkert, M. Schlesinger, H. Meij, X. Xing, and D. Lee. 2006. “A Synthetic Assessment of
the Global Distribution of Vulnerability to Climate Change from the IPCC Perspective that Reflects Exposure and Adaptive
Capacity.” Palisades, New York: CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network), Columbia University.
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/mva/ccv/
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