Building capacity to enhance climate resilience

By Amumpiire Anna Akandwanaho

The recent case of Bududa landslides that led to loss of lives and property are some of the continued climate change effects that we are facing. This is in addition to other effects like: declined quantity of water resources like River Rwizi and Lake Victoria, changing rainfall patterns, including droughts and floods.

A 2013 United Nations Development Programme report estimates the economic loss associated with climate change-induced disasters is currently estimated at 120 Billion Uganda Shillings (US$ 48 million). Climate action plays a fundamental role in realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This is reflected in the SDG 13 which calls for all States to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Uganda is one of the developing countries that are most vulnerable to climate change.

While Uganda has advanced on a number of efforts to address climate change namely a Climate Change Policy and Climate Change Department including the recently approved Parliamentary Committee on Climate Change, the capacity of a number of actors to implement climate change strategies is still low.

Therefore there is need to act e.g. through building the capacity of different actors to enhance climate resilience. In this case, climate resilience means strengthening the ability of society to cope with/respond to and bounce back from climate change impacts.

A capacity needs assessment was carried out by Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment and Environmental Alert to determine the capacity of state and non-state actors in building climate resilience. The capacity assessment was carried out in the districts of Arua, Kyegegwa and Kyenjojo as well as at national level. The capacity assessment found out that actors at sub-national level have inadequate understanding of resilience and climate programming. Moreover, the assessment discovered that most of the respondents did not know or understand climate resilience, with the knowledge being lowest at sub-county level.

Other capacity gaps discovered from the assessment include: inability of some of the local government technical staff to understand their mandates and roles related to climate change action; inability of the actors to access climate information for decision making and inability to identify actions that promote climate resilience. The Local Government officials similarly lack the technical capacity to formulate by-laws and ordinances that support climate resilience.

In the districts assessed, climate change resilience is not understood by local government technical staff as well as the representatives of the council executive committee. As a result this restricts the capacity of the executive councils to initiate and formulate relevant laws on climate change resilience.

The assessment report sets out recommendations aimed at building the capacity of different actors to ensure climate resilience namely: strengthening coordination of climate resilience work; strengthening the knowledge of natural resources departments on climate resilience and strengthening the capacities of the district and sub-county executive committee to initiate and enact (through their councils) ordinances and by-laws that include climate change and climate resilience in the local governments legal documents.

All this can be done through for example trainings and provision of accurate and relevant information on climate resilience to both state and none state actors.

The Writer works with Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)