The General Manger for Adaptation & Project Design with the Office of Climate Change and Development Authority (OCCDA), said the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) was developed to approach Climate Change issues holistically.
Jacob Ekinye said going forward they will need to integrate mainstream Climate Change issues into the sectoral development plans, with the help of all stakeholders including development partners.
Ekinye announced during a press conference that they be roll out the NAP to the national and subnational levels in two phases.
“This in phase 1 we are targeting four sectors; transport, works, health and agriculture sectors. Eventually in Ph 2 we are thinking of rolling it out into subnational level, i.e inside the province and districts. Because it is very important, as you said the vulnerability is becoming profound as we are moving to the future, Climate Change is a serious concern for us, it’s becoming a developmental issue for the country as well,” Ekinye said.
“The objectives under the National Adaptation Plan we had all along was, there were three specific objectives that we had; the first one was about building capacities of our sector agencies, and developing that coordination and networking and liaison with all those sectors we feel relevant to addressing climate change issues. The 2nd objective was integration and mainstreaming like I just alluded to, we need to integrate climate change aspect into their development planning procedures,” said Iki Peter Acting Manager, Adaptation.
Peter emphasized that Climate Change is real and is here to stay. He urged citizens to integrate and adapt to the changes.
“What they can do to adapt to CC is simple things like planting seasonal food crops like plants that are tolerant to droughts…another example would be to move away from vulnerable places. We at the national level we have developed the National Adaptation Plan and we are able to do what we can do but it’s up to the people now to try to realize that Climate Change is real and try to adapt,” he said.
Ekinye acknowledged support from development partners including UNDP led by Resident Coordinator, Dirk Wagner, USAID, Climate Ready, DFAT, EU, and GGGI others.