Making Development Climate Resilient

This Strategy for Making Development Climate-Resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa is the World Bank’s operational response to climate variability and change on the continent. Grounded in a climate risk review of the Africa Region’s Sustainable Development portfolio, it adds the climate change dimension to the Region’s development strategy and business plan — the Africa Action Plan (AAP, 2009-2012) — and will be an integral part of the AAP in the future. The AAP and the climate change strategy are a sound and realistic framework for climate-resilient development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The proposed strategy is based on the premise that increased climate variability threatens the development gains of African countries, and that these effects need to be anticipated so that development efforts can be made more resilient to climate change. Climate has always featured prominently in African development, and people across the continent have been living with and adapting to a high degree of climate variability and its associated risks for many centuries. Yet the accelerated changes in the climate and increasing incidence of climatic disasters (floods, droughts, cyclones) during the last century — and the scientific consensus that Africa is the continent most vulnerable and least able to cope with these changes — have brought these risks into sharper focus, and made the need to address them more urgent. The major challenge is to identify actions that will support and/or accelerate ongoing development efforts while making them more resilient to climatic risks. Therefore, the need to link adaptation to development, and to manage development, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction as one integrated agenda - are the core principles of this strategy.