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Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP)

Scale and complexity of climate challenge demands greater coherence among development partners, says head of Africa Adaptation Programme

In a meeting in Tokyo in late July, representatives of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reaffirmed their commitment to work together in support of adaptation to climate change in Africa, and discussed ways of strengthening their collaboration.

"The profusion and diversity of climate adaptation projects supported by donors can be overwhelming for developing countries," says Ian Rector, head of the Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP). "Anything we can do to coordinate and harmonize our efforts will not only reduce the burden on host countries but also promote more sustainable results."

"Adapting to a world that is 2 degrees Celsius warmer requires that we improve our adaptive capacity and mainstream climate change issues into development planning," said Veerle Vandeweerd, head of UNDP’s Environment and Energy Group. "It’s a big job. We clearly need to maximize the impact of our efforts. This is why we greatly value our partnership with Japan and welcome this rededication to our common cause," she said. Masayuki Karasawa, Deputy Director General of Operations Strategy Department, JICA, added "closer communication and information sharing between JICA and UNDP both at the field as well as HQs level can help facilitate more effective collaboration".

In 2009, JICA and UNDP signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of their efforts to achieve their common development goals, including through the AAP. Recent discussions, including those last month in Tokyo, reaffirmed this commitment and established an agreement to continue their biannual review and discussion of progress.

Following its merger with the overseas economic cooperation arm of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, JICA is one of the biggest bilateral donor agencies in the world. UNDP leads the UN’ development effort in the developing world with offices in 166 countries. Based on each of comparative advantage, the collaboration between JICA and UNDP is to enhance development impacts on the ground.

"This partnership exemplifies real synergies between two crucial and complementary parts of the development process," said Mr. Rector. "It is an important step toward more coherent, programmatic support to countries in adapting to climate change," he said. Higher temperatures, decreased rainfall, increased storm intensity, rising sea levels and the arrival of new pests and diseases are among the effects of climate change expected to confront the development process. The AAP strategy is to help developing countries increase their capacity to transform the climate vulnerability of their national development strategies to greater climate resilience.

The AAP, a flagship programme of UNDP, is helping 20 countries in Africa develop their capacity to design and implement holistic climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction programmes that are aligned with their national development priorities. It was launched in December 2008 under the Japan-UNDP Joint Framework for Building Partnership to Address Climate Change in Africa with funding of US$92 million from the government of Japan. The Programme is an integral part of the Yokohama Action Plan of the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV).

For more information on the Africa Adaptation Programme, please contact mihoko.kumamoto@undp.org in New York or Ian Rector ianr@unops.org in Dakar.