Climate change adaptation in the African roads sector: Constraints, opportunities and policy challenges [poster]

Abstract

Roads play a vital role in strengthening the socio-economic development of regions in Sub-Saharan Africa by providing local communities with critical connections between essential market points, service towns and infrastructure. The United Nations Environmental Programme describes the African continent as a ‘vulnerability hotspot’ for climate change. During the past four decades, African countries have experienced more than 1,500 recorded weather-related disasters. These disasters impact on affected countries’ economies and, in particular, on rural communities and their livelihoods. Changes to the region’s climate are causing widespread damage to road infrastructure and its associated assets. Rural accessibility is being compromised by climate variability in a number of countries for significant periods of the year, adversely affecting livelihoods and associated socio-economic development, both directly and indirectly. Although climate commitments have been undertaken by many countries in the region, policy has not always been translated into action in all sectors and the transport sector (especially rural roads) has not featured strongly when countries consider climate change actions. To enhance the capacity of roads authorities to reduce the current and future impacts of climate change on rural roads, a project was initiated by the Africa Community Access Partnership (AfCAP), a research programme funded by UK Aid, to focus on climate adaptation in this sector. Through research and knowledge sharing, the objective was to compile pragmatic, cost beneficial engineering and non-engineering procedures and guidance that could be used to direct roads sector institutions to address climate threats. A methodology for carrying out climate adaptation assessments for rural roads was developed and packaged into a handbook and series of linked guideline documents. The project further looked at addressing capacity enhancement in the AfCAP partner countries to ensure a strong focus on embedment and uptake. The study focused predominantly on three AfCAP countries, namely Mozambique, Ethiopia and Ghana. In order to embed climate change adaptation into the respective national transport authorities, several constraints had to be addressed. Two prominent issues emerged, with the first being the lack of in-country collaboration between sectors when dealing with climate change science, and the second being gaps in policies that address climate change in the transport sector. These constraints have affected the capacity of the national transport authorities in the various countries to incorporate climate change risk and vulnerability into their planning systems. The project therefore provided an opportunity to address these challenges and to enable the practical implementation of climate change adaptation in the roads sector.