Documents

Managing Risks - Water and Climate

Chairperson: H.E. Martha Karua (Kenya)
Rapporteur: Bill Cosgrove (WWC)
Session coordinator: Mohamed Tawfik (WMO)

Conclusions and recommendations

On the basis of two keynote speeches and eight presentations, which were widely discussed by the participants, the session agreed on the following conclusions and recommendations:

Water security, including water safety, is a prerequisite for economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa. This requires huge investments, far beyond the capabilities of most African countries, hence the solution has to come via external assistance. At the same time, major institutional strengthening is required, recognizing the transboundary nature of most of the continent's water resources.
As human influence on climate is becoming increasingly apparent, water managers have to design strategies to cope effectively with today's climate variability and tomorrow's climate change, which is likely to increase water stress in already stressed regions. Impacts of climate variability and change on groundwater resources should be also considered.
The reduction of vulnerability through preparedness, such as early warning systems, is essential to achieving development goals. Risk assessment should be used as a tool for decision-making in development planning.
Enhancing the understanding of risk from extreme events, climate variability and climate change is a cross-sectoral issue, and the preparation of prevention, response and adaptation strategies requires a comprehensive approach. Therefore, multidisciplinary initiatives like the establishment of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Interagency Task Force, and the Cooperative Programme on Water and Climate should be encouraged, and their involvement in Africa expanded.
An end-to-end management of disasters is indispensable for risk reduction to be effective at the local level, therefore the efforts to develop more efficient strategies in the management of floods and droughts within the concept of integrated water resources and risk management, like the ones undertaken by ISDR, WMO, GWP and national and regional disaster preparedness and prevention agencies should be strengthened.
Hydrological and meteorological forecasts, risk-related information and products should be "translated" to common language and be fully disseminated to the end users (from Government to community level).
A large number of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in Africa are deficient in their capacities to collect, archive, process and disseminate hydrological data and information. Therefore training is essential to ensure that NMHSs are staffed with adequate personnel. In this regard, use should be made of existing training centres in Africa, such as the Regional Training Centres in Egypt, the Water Resources Programme at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and others. Networking and collaboration among these centres are encouraged.
At the same time, Governments, financial institutions and donor agencies must resume their funding to the institutions responsible for the maintenance and operation of the hydrological and meteorological networks in Africa, as their data and information are essential to produce reliable water resources assessments, the fundamental basis of IWRM.
In addition, institutional capacities of African water agencies should be strengthened, taking advantage of programmes like the World Hydrological Cycle Observing System (WHYCOS), which should be expanded to cover all regions and river/lake basins in Africa.
Data and information exchange should be fostered as a baseline requirement to ensure improved early warning and forecast, especially in transboundary basins.
As regards the information and products needed to cope with increased climate variability and climate change, the session identified the following requirements for the African situation:

i. Models to generate accurate climate change scenarios, predict the impacts on floods, droughts and freshwater availability and their utilization to meet different socioeconomic needs;

ii. Procedures and techniques for evaluating the vulnerability of water resources;

iii. The development of adaptation strategies that include a suite of interventions designed to address the impacts on different water uses, with a medium to long-term framework, in order to provide guidance for water resources managers.

In this context, the session welcomed the offer of the representative of the EU to establish contacts in order to explore the possibility of financing research projects on the topics outlined above.

Water-related climate change research on the continent should aim, among others, at appropriate downscaling to basin and aquifer levels to provide the necessary decision support tools for managing the impacts of climate variability and change.
The Global Flood Alert System (GFAS) project of IFNet is welcomed as a potentially very valuable tool for flood warning in Africa. It is recommended that this initiative should be closely coordinated with HYCOS component projects in the continent. In this context, the session welcomed the offer of IFNet to include pilot regions of Africa in their program of work.
There is need to formulate and implement clear policies and strategies to combat flooding and drought in vulnerable areas in Africa. Coordination of efforts among different agencies having similar objectives should be ensured in order to avoid conflicting policies within a basin.