Burkina Faso staging
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
An analysis of the development of national adaptation programmes of action on climate change (NAPA) in the least developed countries (LDC) illustrates that NAPAs are beset by difficulties, during both formulation and implementation:
- delays in their formulation;
- failure to take due account of climate change in development > policies and strategies;
- insufficient funding during implementation.
However, adaptation to climate change is no longer a choice; it is the only option in the quest for sustainable development and a process which effectively includes all stakeholders needs to be set in motion in order to address the root causes of climate change. Burkina Faso has an advantage over many other LDC, in that its NAPA, adopted in 2007, has been implemented under three projects with technical and financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Kingdom of Denmark, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Japan. It capitalised on that advantage and put it to good use when the national climate change adaptation programme (NAP) was formulated, by applying the exerptise from NAPA projects.
Generally speaking, NAPA have been unable to convince backers to finance them. There is clearly an urgent need at present to adopt a new programming framework (NAP) in addition to the NAPA already adopted to respond to the need for urgent adaptation. This new vision adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has the advantage of ensuring that better account is taken of climate change in development policies and strategies and of bringing backers on board who fund climate change adaptation. In other words, in theory an NAP has a better chance of being funded and thus implemented than an NAPA.
The objectives of an NAP are to (i) reduce vulnerability to the impact of climate change by developing adaptation and resilience capabilities; (ii) facilitate the integration of climate change adaptation into new or existing policies, programmes or activities and in specific development planning processes and strategies in pertinent sectors and at various levels in a coherent manner.
It ultimately results in a reference document containing practical information with a view to helping to:
- reduce the vulnerability of natural, social and economic systems to climate change;
- integrate climate change adaptation into current or future development policies and strategies.
The vision of the Burkina Faso NAP reads as follows: "Burkina Faso intends to manage its economic and social development more efficiently by implementing planning mechanisms and measures taking account of resilience and adaptation to climate change between now and 2050".
The long-term adaptation objectives based on that vision are to:
- protect accelerated growth pillars;
- ensure sustainable food and nutrition security;
- preserve water resources and improve access to sanitation;
- protect persons and goods from extreme climate events and natural disasters;
- protect and improve the functioning of natural ecosystems;
- protect and improve public health.
The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted decision 5/CP.17 on national adaptation plans (NAP) at its 17th session held in Durban (South Africa) on 11 December 2011 in order to help LDC take better account of climate change in their development policies and strategies. Burkina Faso decided to prepare an NAP in response to that decision. In order to do so, a multidisciplinary team of experts with expertise in the following sectors was set up at national level to formulate the NAP: (i) agriculture; (ii) animal production; (iii) environment and natural resources; (iv) meteorology; (v) energy; (vi) health; (vii) infrastructure and housing; (viii) women's associations; (ix) civil society organisations. The team of experts is listed in the annex. In order to take account of water security, the NAP took account of the written input received from the Global Water Partnership West Africa and the Burkina National Water Partnership, both of which offered to help with national coordination of NAPA projects by providing a water consultant and cofinancing workshops with stakeholders.
The NAP was formulated with very close attention to institutional, technical and financial aspects. The Mathematical Equation Analysis Laboratory (LAME) of the University of Ouagadougou (UO), with support from the NAPA-BKF-UNDP/Japan project entitled 'Improving capacities to take better account of climate change-related concerns during the preparation and implementation of development plans, programmes and projects', prepared climate forecasts for Burkina Faso up to 2100 and evaluated the vulnerability of various development sectors. The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development set up a technical committee to monitor formulation of the NAP through the Permanent Secretariat of the National Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PS/CONEDD). The following were established in detail for each development sector: (i) structural vulnerability; (ii) priority adaptation sectors; (iii) court-, medium- and long-term adaptation measures; (iv) a five-year adaptation action plan; (v) the cost of adaptation measures over a period of between 1 and 15 years.
The Burkina Faso NAP comprises (i) adaptation plans for each development sector and (ii) a global adaptation plan for the entire country. The action plans for the various sectors are summarised below:
The objectives of the action plan for each sector are as follows:
