The Role of Higher Education in adapting to

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The Role of Higher Education in adapting to
Climate and Ecosystems Change The case in
Ethiopian context Mekuria Argaw (PhD) Addis
Ababa University Environmental Science
Program Horn of Africa Regional Environment
Centre and Network (HoAREC/N) WUR, Nov. 4, 2009
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• Contents
• Introduction
• General environmental overview
• Resource (ecosystem) degradation
• Climate change indicators and impacts
• Adaptation and Adaptive capacity
•   Research and training on climate change and
  Adaptation Some examples
•   Climate change in the Higher Education
  Curriculum
•   Gaps and Opportunities
• Climate change in HoAREC

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• Introduction

• Country overview and resource degradation
•  
• High population (over 80 million), projected to
  be 120 million by 2025
• Agrarian economy-rain fed (85 employment,
  more than 90 export-single
• crop dependent)
• Diverse agro-ecology and agro-climatic regions
  (gt 70 in arid and semi-arid
• domain with erratic RF)
• Troubled environment and severe soil erosion in
  the highlands (power house
• of economy)
• High deforestation (16 2 ), overgrazing and
  mismanagement
• Impaired resilience in many parts of the
  degraded highlands
• Fragile and climate sensitive ecosystems (fire
  hazard-Bale)

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• Climate change impacts and indicators in Ethiopia
• Impacts
• Food insecurity (increased number of vulnerable
  population)
• Power shortage (reduced water in reservoirs)
• Wider economic impacts (in all
  sectors-agriculture, energy, industry, water ,
  etc)
• Ecological impacts (degradation of critical
  watersheds-Bale and Kefa, severe
• downstream impacts on important ecosystems)
• Social impacts (increased conflict over
  resource use-water and grazing land)
• Indicators
• Extreme weather events (increased frequency of
  floods and droughts)
• Increased variability in rainfall (in amount,
  spatial and temporal distribution)
• Shift in cropping regimes (dramatic change of
  the cropping calendar-June to August)
• Shift in favourable agro-climatic range of
  crops and diseases (e.g., lowland crops in
• highlands-sorghum belt in highlands, malaria
  zone in the highlands)
• Shift in livestock composition in pastoral
  areas (from grazers to browsers)

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• Adaptation and Adaptive capacity
• Adaptation
• Adjustment in natural or human systems in
  response to actual or expected climatic
• stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm
  or exploits beneficial opportunities.
•  
• Not a once-off intervention and not a single
  stand-alone activity. It is a process that
• needs to be taken as part of an overall
  development policy, program and projects in
• a country.
•  
• Communities at local level might have been
  doing this for long. Do we have
• enough information? What do we know about the
  impacts and consequences?
•  Adaptive capacity
• The ability of a system to adjust to climate
  change (including climate variability and
• extremes) to lessen potential damages, to
  take advantage of opportunities, or to
• cope with consequences. Is there enough
  knowledge and expertise to design

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• Research and training on climate change and
  adaptation Some examples

• Research in higher institutes
• Re-thinking water storage for climate
• change adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa
• (Ethiopia and Ghana)
• Ethiopia Selected watersheds in Blue Nile
  Basin  
• Ghana selected watersheds Volta basin
• Partners IWMI-Addis Ababa and Ghana,
  ZEF-University of Bonn, Arba Minch University,
  Climate
• Impact Research-Germany, Water Research Institute
  -Ghana, University of Ghana, Volta Basin
  Authority/ Water Resource Authority -Ghana

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• Capacity Building in Integrated River Basin
  Management in Higher Learning Institutes
• A research and training project at PhD and
  MSc levels, by developing new curriculum
• for the program in which climate change is
  one of the themes.
• Horn of Africa Regional Environment
  Centre/Network initiator and coordinator
• Partners Addis Ababa University, 8 other
  Ethiopian universities, UNESCO-IHE
• Free University Amsterdam , WUR, META-META
• Bio-resource innovations network in Eastern
  Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda,
• Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia-Addis Ababa
  University)
•  
• A regional research and training project on
  bio-resources. AAU partly coordinates and
• a country focal point. Climate change is a
  major component.
• Partners various academic and research
  institutes in member countries
• Staff research projects small grant projects
  on climate change adaptation and
• community responses, Food security and climate
  change

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• Research in non-academic research institutes
• Some research/publications on local adaptation
  practices from
• International Policy Research Institute
  (IFPRI-Addis Ababa)
• International Livestock Research Institute
  (ILRI-Addis Ababa)
• Ethiopian Economics Association
• Forum for Social Studies (on policy and
  adaptation)
• etc....

•   Climate change in the Higher Education
  Curriculum

• No streams of specialization (in climate
  change and adaptation)
• Few related courses in the curriculum in AAU,
  HU and MU (virtually none)
• e.g., Introduction to climate (Dept. Geography
  and environmental Science AAU)
• Climate change (Environmental Science,
  new module AAU) Applied
• Climatology (Dept. Natural Resources
  Management MU)
• Student thesis research (mainly on prediction
  and trend analysis, not in
• adaptation)

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•   Gaps and Opportunities in HEIs

• Gaps
• Inadequate research and analysis on the
  impacts of climate change (insufficient hard
• data except common knowledge)
• Absence of classified information on the
  impact spectrum (sector, geographical
• region, agro-ecology, social groups,
  habitats, ecosystems, etc...)
• Clear lack of information on national and local
  adaptation mechanisms and coping
• strategies
• Absence of adaptive capacity analysis
• Inadvertent omission of climate issues in the
  curriculum of higher learning institutes
• No academic institute with a specialization
  stream on climate change/excellence
• Opportunities
• In the process of national level reengineering
  of the governance and educational
• structure (BPR), which requires complete
  review of the existing curriculum
• Curriculum preparation for the IRBM project is
  underway and climate change
• adaptation can be incorporated
• Favourable policy direction (Ethiopia on fore
  front in the climate justice negotiation)

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• Climate change at HoAREC/N

• Climate change-one of the partnership program
• Key partner of EPA on climate change since 2007
• Organized and initiated the formation of
  National climate change research network
• (with Global Mountain Program, University of
  Witwatersrand and EIAR)
• September 2008
• Supporter and founding member of the ECSNCC
• Supported the participation of members of the
  ECSNCC and the centre staff
• in the on-going negotiations on CC in Bonn,
  Bangkok and Copenhagen in December
• Member of the national climate appeal campaign
  and public hearing
• Organized a training for Ethiopian negotiators
  on the main issues, negotiation skills, as
• LDC and MVC, as African nation
• Member of the national negotiation team in
  Copenhagen
• Participated in several climate change
  awareness workshops and advocacy workshops
• e.g., joined the group which called for the US to
  lead the deal (there is a lot of noise)
• Invited by the media on climate change talks
  (TV, Radio, Press)
• Participated in the AMCEN and PACJA meetings
  held in October 2009 in Addis

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• Organized regional training on Climate Change
  Adaptation in Agriculture and
• Natural Resource Management in collaboration
  with WUR June, 2009
• Timely and much needed training
• Participants gained important experience and
  learned analytical tools
• More people are interested to join
• Appreciated by many as it was an eye-opener
  training
• Initiated staff members to write projects on
  climate change adaptation
• Outcome
• HoAREC started networking with participants
  organizations (e.g., Dr. Bayu)
• PhD study on climate change impacts and
  adaptation in agriculture in Gambela-one of
  the affected lowland regions
• Further collaboration on adaptation research
  by one of the participants (Haramaya
  University)
• CDM training workshop (SC-US)

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Thank You!