26 July 2018: Climate risks threaten development gains in the Arab region, and will lead to an increase in “eco-migrants” and undermine efforts to end poverty, inequality and hunger by 2030, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report that highlights challenges and opportunities of building climate resilience in the region.
The report titled, ‘Climate Change Adaptation in the Arab States: Best Practices and Lessons Learned,’ highlights results from recent UNDP projects in a region that includes 14 of the world’s 20 most water-stressed countries, and, based on current climate projections, will have a water supply equal to only 15% of 1960 levels by 2025. It includes recommendations based on lessons learned from UNDP’s adaptation work that will help countries mainstream, scale up and accelerate adaptation initiatives, and achieve the SDGs and the objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).
The Arab region will have a water supply equal to only 15% of 1960 levels by 2025.
The projects highlighted in the report have helped align climate action with broader SDGs, including SDGs 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 5 (gender equality), 6 (clean water and sanitation), 10 (reduced inequalities), 15 (life on land) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions), among others.
The report recommends, inter alia:
- empowering local communities to participate in adaptation and disaster risk preparedness;
- improving access to financial services such as Weather Index Insurance and microfinance;
- building local capacity at all levels to ensure long-term viability of projects;
- promoting water-use efficiency practices to improve agricultural and pastoral production;
- improving climate information data collection and analysis and the implementation of early warning systems; and
- ensuring women are key agents of climate action and natural resource protection.
The report details a range of best practices related to, among others: sand dams in Somalia; fog harvesting in Djibouti; coastal adaptation in Tunisia and Egypt; community revolving funds and microfinance in Sudan and Djibouti; ensuring access to financial services in remote areas in Sudan; institutional strengthening in Morocco; resilience through livelihood diversification in Djibouti and Somalia; empowering women in Djibouti and Somalia; and empowering youth by updating university curricula to produce more technical graduates in Somalia.
The report also describes an SDG-Climate Nexus Facility in the region, under establishment by UNDP in partnership with the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Office for DRR (UNISDR), the League of Arab States and the Arab Water Council. The facility, to be launched in 2018, will support bottom-up local actions to achieve SDG 13 (climate action) and the Paris Agreement to bring co-benefits to SDGs related to poverty reduction (SDG 1), food security (SDG 2), water access (SDG 6), inequality (SDG 10) and land degradation (SDG 15). [Climate Change Adaptation in the Arab States: Best Practices and Lessons Learned] [Executive Summary] [Report Landing Page] [UNDP Blog Post] [UNDP Press Release] [UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Portal]