Using climate information to achieve long-term development objectives in coastal Ghana and Mozambique

Accra and Maputo currently face many development challenges, such as poor transport and drainage infrastructure, as a result of inadequate planning regulation and law enforcement. These weaknesses in governance and service provision already have profound implications for people’s livelihoods. Climate change is likely to lead to flooding and coastal erosion in these cities, which will compound these development challenges.

As part of the Future Climate For Africa (FCFA) scoping phase, the authors assessed whether and how future climate information is being used to guide the planning and delivery of development programmes in the two cities. Methods included a desktop study, a preliminary survey and a participatory workshop in each city. In the process, a recently developed ‘co-exploration’ workshop methodology was further refined.

The workshop, held in Accra in June 2014, explored how multiple risks and stressors create vulnerability for city residents, using Dansoman in Accra and Costa do Sol in Maputo as test cases. In each of these cities, participants were a mix of academics, government officials, disaster risk reduction practitioners and climate impact modellers. Rather than beginning with the climate science and adopting a sector focus, the co-exploration approach began with a place-based, multi-stressor vulnerability analysis onto which layers of climate data were integrated to inform decision-making.

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Learn more about the Future Climate For Africa project (external link)