Climate Risk Management in Finnish Development Cooperation - Gaia

However, in the near future, rain fed agriculture will continue to dominate Ethiopia’s agricultural
production making it highly vulnerable for climate variability and change.
To date, the NAPA has not succeeded in catalyzing concerted efforts and funding for implementing
“adaptation specific” projects. While some donor funded activities, falling broadly under the
umbrella of the NAPA priorities are currently on-going or planned, a clear nationally driven
adaptation project portfolio is still waiting to get launched.
Despite climate change having recently risen onto the Ethiopian national policy agenda 41 , several
barriers remain, hampering the implementation of pro-adaptation measures on national, regional
and local levels.
A strong institutional ownership of climate policy (be it adaptation or mitigation) is still lacking in
Ethiopia, with the absence of a clear home-base for climate policy and decisive leadership for policy
coordination and cross-sectoral communication. The recent establishment of a “National Forum on
Climate Change” may help to overcome some of these barriers, possibly leading to the elaboration
of a national climate strategy. An active national climate forum could also serve to overcome other
critical barriers related to low overall level of environmental awareness and lack of efficient climate
outreach mechanisms to local communities.
The currently available body of knowledge, despite significant gaps, could be used to consistently
guide overall policy development and investments in Ethiopia towards lower climate vulnerability.
This will imply among other things diversifying the energy production portfolio (currently relying
almost exclusively on hydropower) and gradually increasing the share of non-agricultural livelihoods,
i.e. creating employment in economic activities less directly dependant on climatic patterns.
In the immediate future, specific data gaps must be filled and information services improved in order
to protect Ethiopian communities from current climate variability and on-going climate change. This
means filling gaps and knowledge about already experienced climate variability and changes and
collecting information and understanding how local communities have so far been able to adapt.
This means learning from past experiences and understanding that just coping is not enough but
reducing poverty, catalyzing sustainable growth and improving livelihoods, in spite of changing
climate.
Taking note of Ethiopia’s extensive geographical diversity, considerable size and the climate diversity
there is a need for country specific climate projections that would facilitate solid risk proofing of
major regional and local level development and investment decisions. 42 Due to lacking capacities and
41 The Ethiopian Prime Minister has in 2009 on several occasions, on national and international forums, expressed the need
to address climate challenges, highlighting the responsibility of developed countries in urgent mitigation efforts as well as
in assisting developing countries in adaptation.
42 The currently available climate change projections for Africa are very uncertain, especially concerning local and temporal
details. For impact and vulnerability assessments, they can only provide an indication of the range of possible climate
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