The "Climate Change through the Lens of Vulnerability and Human Rights" meeting highlighted that social protection can improve adaptive capacities of the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change.
15 October 2010: The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Coordination Mechanism Cluster on Social and Human Development hosted a two-day meeting to examine the human and social dimensions of climate change in the life of African people.
The meeting, titled “Climate Change through the Lens of Vulnerability and Human Rights,” took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 11-12 October 2010, and preceded the Seventh Africa Development Forum, held at the same venue from 10-15 October. Participants examined how the impoverished, socially excluded and vulnerable groups can engage in, and benefit from, adaptation processes. Fungayi Jessie Majome, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, indicated that social protection can improve adaptive capacities of the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change. UNFPA representatives stressed that the additional burden of diseases and deaths caused by climate change further strain already weak and under-funded health systems, noting the need to continue strengthening health systems’ functioning and preparedness in order to cope with the additional challenges imposed by climate change. [UNFPA Press Release] [Seventh African Development Forum] [Climate Change and Health Care Systems in Africa] [UNECA Press Release] [Climate Change Policy & Practice Story on the Seventh African Development Forum]