Africa Regional Resilience Dialogue

Building Back Better and Greener: Seizing transformation 0pportunities for a resilient future in Africa

Programme

Africa Regional Resilience Dialogue Programme

Recording

Context

As with the rest of the world, climate change is one of the greatest challenges that Africa faces today. The continent continues to sustain significant impacts through environmental degradation, human suffering, deprivation, and irreplaceable habitat loss and damage. This is compounded by the poor capacities to anticipate and adapt to the most extreme events. As such, climate resilience action must address the most pressing climate related vulnerabilities and adaptation needs of communities in Africa. This situation also presents an opportunity to urgently implement inclusive and innovative solutions and initiatives that have both adaptation and  mitigation co-benefits that reduce GHG emissions, increase adaptation investments, accelerate low emission climate resilient development; and build adaptation capacities. Too often initiatives and programmes in this area are characterised by low investments, fragmentation, low scale, limited use of knowledge and evidence; and are lowly prioritised. Dialogues among stakeholders present an opportunity for expanded partnerships, development of capacities, coordination and management of climate risks as well as the mobilisation of human and financial resources to build (back) sustainable and better within and across sectors.

The impacts of the COVID-19 should not steer the world away from a strong response to the climate crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on many developing countries is significant, particularly in Africa. COVID-19 has driven Sub-Saharan Africa into its first recession in 25 years, with expected economic growth potentially falling as low as negative 5.1% in 2020. The COVID-19 reality is further compounded by extreme climate and weather events. As we speak, there is extreme flooding in East Africa, drought in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, a heavy build-up of the hurricane season and a second wave of the Desert Locust invasion is imminent. These risks, combined, make it extremely difficult to project a future of a resilient and sustainable food-secure Africa. These risks, if not managed, will slow down or even reverse the hard worn progress towards key development indicators such as gender equality, health, education and productivity.

The Africa Regional Resilience Dialogue (ARRD) is an opportunity to mobilize actors on crucial climate resilience action at local, national and regional level; taking regional priorities into consideration. It offers an inclusive and open stakeholder’s platform to build stronger partnerships, showcase and transfer groundbreaking knowledge and action aiming at building climate resilience and fostering adaptation on the continent.

Overview of Agenda

Opening Remarks:

  1. Agnes Kalibata, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit
  2. Kevin Kariuki, Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate & Green Growth at The African Development Bank Group on behalf of Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank

Panel 1: From the Frontline: Building resilience in food and agriculture systems in Africa 

  1. Gordon Kotey Nikoi, Esoko Ghana
  2. Nicera Wanjiru Kimani, Female Youth / Safety and Inclusive Cities (SAIC) Community Coordinator- Kibra
  3. Paswel Marenya, Senior Scientist – Socioeconomics, CIMMYT Kenya
  4. Celia Ribeiro, Luteari – Insumos & Serviços Agrícolas, Mozambique

Moderator: Wanjira Mathai,  Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, World Resource Institute (WRI)

Panel 2: Going to Scale and Transforming food and agriculture systems: securing high level commitments for resilience and adaptation in food and agriculture systems to ensure post-COVID-19 recovery that is greener, better and more inclusive.

  1. Mohamed Ajuba Sheriff, Director of Planning Evaluation, Monitoring and Statistics Division (PEMSD), Ministry of Agriculture, Sierra Leona
  2. Martin Fregene, Director of Agriculture and Agro-Industry (AHAI) at the African Development Bank (AfDB)
  3. Thomas Njeru, Co-Founder, Director, Pula Insurance
  4. Abir Lemseffer, Director General, Adaptation of Africa Agriculture Initiative (AAAI)

Moderator: Prof. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Director and Chair-  Alliance for Research Universities in Africa (ARUA) Food Systems Centre of Excellence, University of Pretoria; Co-Chair Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA)

Series & Organisers

This dialogue is part of a wider series of dialogues being convened by the Global Resilience Partnership together with Climate Resilience Network of the UNFCCC Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action (MPGCA) with the support of the Chile and UK High Level Champions (HLCs), Gonzalo Muñoz and Nigel Topping.

The Africa Regional Resilience Dialogue is co-led by: AfDBAGRAAfrica Climate Foundation, CCAFS/CGIAR
Supporting organisations include: ENDA Enregie, FAO/A2RGNDRICLEI AfricaIEAMRR Innovation Lab at UC DavisRed Cross Red Crescent Climate CentreRegions4SDISEI AfricaSIWI Africa, WRI.

More events

09Apr2024

Online

Partner

Webinar | Insurance and Reinsurance: Can We Move from Risks to Resilience?

06May2024
Partner

CBA18: Local solutions inspiring global action

22Oct2024

Cape Town, South Africa

Other

Market Systems Symposium 2024