Climate Risk Management in Finnish Development Cooperation - Gaia

esources, no detailed national modelling and analyses are currently available. 43 Unless Ethiopia
manages to establish an adequate number of cadres that can spearhead climate change issues and
help apply climate risk management tools in policy planning and decision making, implementation of
adaptation will remain slow. Lessons learned from other countries point out the importance of
ensuring that climate risk considerations and mainstreaming are particularly well rooted in national
economic planning.
Climate change related information is being produced in several activities by numerous stakeholders.
The institutional capacity to manage and share the climate information is still weak. There is a need
to effectively collate and coordinate these efforts as well as improve the utilization of the existing
climate information. E.g. the Ministry of Water Resources is currently enhancing its capacity to
model rainfall and predict flooding, which should improve preparedness for weather extremes and
serve adaptation strengthening on local level. For this to happen, information sharing between
sectors and different levels of authorities must continue to improve.
While funding remains a critical challenge hampering implementation of adaptation specific projects,
several on-going national development programmes and projects are actually strengthening the
adaptive capacity of the Ethiopian society. The international community should support Ethiopia in
its development efforts and ensure that all development cooperation also contributes to proadaptation
(and pro-mitigation) progress in Ethiopia, in line with Ethiopian development objectives.
3.3 Climate mainstreaming by international development
cooperation partners
The development cooperation partners of Ethiopia (including international organizations, donor
agencies, civil society organizations etc) are generally aware of the challenges posed by climate
change to Ethiopian development aspirations.
Climate change (adaptation and mitigation) features well e.g. in some of the World Bank funded
activities such as the Sustainable Land Management (SLM) programme. UNDP has focused in its
climate work on natural resource management and strengthening coping measures on local level,
which directly contribute to reduced climate vulnerability. DFID has, among other activities, during
several years provided support on climate data, climate risk identification and policy advice e.g. most
recently on the economics of climate change through the advisory by Sir Nicolas Stern.
Some international organizations, in cooperation with national partners, are investigating the
potential for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). However, many barriers are still hampering
changes. Müller, Christoph: Climate change impact on Sub-Saharan Africa : an overview and analysis of scenarios and
models / Christoph Müller. – Bonn : DIE, 2009 – (Discussion Paper / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik ; 3/2009).
43 See e.g. the Nile Basin Initiative and ENTRO (Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office) Climate Change Approach Paper,
June 2009, which identifies a need for regional predictions that would allow analyzing e.g. potential climate change
implications for river flows, sedimentation levels, hydropower generation, etc.
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