Climate change is affecting all countries, but Least Developed Countries and other vulnerable developing countries are expected to be hit earliest and hardest.

Africa will be affected particularly in terms of food security, sustainable water supplies and extreme weather phenomena such as floods, droughts and desertification. In an increasing number of African communities, countries and sub-regions, economies and livelihoods continue to decline due to desert encroachment related to climate change and land degradation.

The goal of the Integrating Vulnerability and Adaptation in Eastern and Southern Africa project is to reduce the vulnerability of communities to the impacts of climate change, thereby improving their well-being and protecting their livelihoods. The project provides global environment benefits by contributing to the mitigation of land degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. To support achievement of its goal, the objective of the project is to promote the mainstreaming or integration of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change into sustainable development plans and planning processes through the three pilot projects. 

Through the implementation of demonstration projects in Kenya, Mozambique and Rwanda as well as supporting activities at the regional level, the intended outcomes of the project are:

• Generation of capacity in each pilot project country to implement adaptation measures in the field that will reduce their vulnerability to climate change;
• Increased capacity in each country to generate and use information about climate change to effect change in relevant development policies; and,
• Increased knowledge of the linkages between development planning and climate change, including policy process and methodologies.

Project Goals:

The individual pilot projects will also contribute to the mitigation of land degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.

• In Kenya, efforts to reduce the vulnerability of Makueni District to the impact of drought through improved land management practices will contribute to sequestration or conservation of carbon in the soil.
• Community-based fire management in central Mozambique will reduce the area of forests that currently burn on an annual basis, and provide the skills necessary to address the rise in fire outbreaks anticipated as a result of climate change.
• In Rwanda, increased provision of energy from current and future mini-hydro dams will reduce demand for energy from fossil fuels and biomass sources.

Funding: United Nations Environmental Programme Global Environmental Facility (UNEP-GEF)

Executing agencies

• African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
• International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) 

• Centre for Innovations in Science and Technology with the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (Kenya)
• AMBERO-IP with GTZ (Mozambique), - Implementing Agency in Mozambique
• Kigali Institute for Science and Technology (Rwanda)