African Academy of Sciences at COP26

More than any other continent, Africa is already bearing the impact of the instability of the climate system as evidenced by increasingly unpredictable patterns of precipitation and high temperatures. These trends have devastating impacts on the continent’s economies, livelihoods, and ecosystems. Drastic and urgent climate action is required to ensure that the continent does not experience worsening climate related devastation and retains some capacity to meet its development aspirations.

Drastic climate action will require the engagement of all sectors, interests and stakeholders. A key gap in climate policy and governance in Africa is the weak linkage between science and policy. This gap must be addressed urgently to ensure that development strategies, policies and programmes are climate informed. The Climate Research for Development (CR4D) initiative is a multimillion dollar initiative to support Africa-led climate science research to address these gaps and situate climate research into the broader development context.

The CR4D initiative disbursed grants to the first cohort of 21 post-doctoral researchers from Benin, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe in June 2019. For about 18 months, the CR4D grantees conducted research in diverse fields grouped into foundational climate science, climate change impacts and policy/advocacy knowledge frontiers.

CR4D is playing a critical role in mobilizing African climate researchers around a unified climate research agenda to address priority needs of policy makers and vulnerable communities in Africa, in addition to building the capacities of young African climate scientists through cross-regional exchanges, fellowship and secondments.

CR4D is an African-led initiative supported by partnerships between the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) to strengthen links between climate science research and climate information needs in support of development planning in Africa.

Cop 26

AAS in partnership with UNECA will participate in COP26 to amplify Africa’s voice and priorities on climate change by sharing research outputs from the CR4D initiative in a panel session on Thursday 11 November 2021. 

Session details

Date: Thursday 11 November 2021 

Time: 09:00-10:30am Glasgow time, (GMT)  

Venue: Online live stream