Climate Adaptation option in Mongu, Zambia

The Lyambai Vulnerability and Adaptation Project hosted a community and local decision makers workshop in Mongu, Zambia on 17-19 October 2007. The workshop aimed at raising awareness on climate variability and extreme weather events in the area. After identifying their vulnerabilities in the different sectors that they are in, the participants then came up with possible adaptation options. Many of the suggested option were long term and often required monetary resources. However, in starting to think of smaller, do-able adaptations; the group realised that these could be executed almost immediately and required very little (if at all any) resources. For example, mangoes are very popular in this area of Zambia and in the mango season, they are in abundance. Processing mangoes - either by drying them or preserving them could be a good source of income for many of these households. Preserving may require some training and the products would need a market but given the climate of the area; the drying of the fruit would not be difficult. Food processing is in itself not adaptation action. However, the money generated from it can help families to generate an alternative source of income where their traditional crops may have failed due to the extreme temperatures, high rainfall variability and unpredictable flooding that are characteristic of the area.

Zambia country information on UNDP's adaptation learning mechanism