ZEF will be partner in project on ‘Re-thinking water storage for climate change adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa’
The Center for Development Research will be a major partner in a project in sub-Saharan Africa led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The project on climate change adaptation will officially start on April 1 and be funded by the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with an amount of 1.2 million Euros for a three year period.
The project aims at increasing resilience of the rural poor who are vulnerable to climate change related risks in sub-Saharan Africa, through better water storage mechanisms, improved investment strategies and institutional support. It will examine various storage options, their economic feasibility, suitability in various physiographic and socio-political conditions, their distributional outcomes and impact on local livelihoods, environmental consequences, adoption potential and resilience under different climate change scenarios. The study will be carried out in Ghana and Ethiopia, as these countries are predicted to be affected differently by climate change, cover the variety of storage options practiced, attract attention of international investors and have well-established relationships with the project proponents.
Comprehensive analyses of storage options will be carried out from the farmers’ and investors’ perspectives under area-specific scenarios of future water availability. A diverse range of national and international partners and stakeholders are involved in the proposed project and outputs will be disseminated through established regional networks, peer-reviewed papers, on-line sources and policy round tables.
Partners
Implementing partners in Ethiopia are the EEA -Ethiopian Economic Association / Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute in Addis Ababa, and the Arba Minch University / Institute of Water Technology in Arba Minch.
The main Ghanean partners are Irrigation Engineering, the Water Research Institute (WRI) in Accra, as well as the Volta Basin Authority in Burkina Faso.
From the German side the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) will be involved as well. ZEF will contribute expertise in Water Politics, Water Institutions and Social Anthropology through its senior staff members Peter Mollinga, Wolfram Laube, and Irit Eguavoen. The study will also benefit from long-lasting collaboration between IWMI and ZEF in Ghana through the GLOWA-Volta project. ZEF will receive 134,500 € for its research activities within the project.
e-mail: pmollinga@uni-bonn.de
