Country Information For Sida

• 1 General Sources of Information
• 2 Institutional Capacity
• 3 Networks
• 4 Country Specific Information

General Sources of Information

The purpose of this page is to gather information that will be useful to Sida for conducting a quick screening of the effects of climate change on countries they are active in, and to what extent adaptation to these effects needs to be taken into account when planning country level development cooperation strategies.

The first 2 places to look for information are the UNFCCC National Communications and National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) as both are useful country-led assessments of climate change and adaptation , and are documents which synthesise country-relevant data on climate change. Searching for a specific country on the UNFCCC site will allow you to see the status of their National Communications and NAPAs, as well as whether they have national climate change websites.

NAPAs are a good place to start looking for information about adaptation in LDCs, as they are country-driven assessments which focus on 'urgent and immediate needs regading adaptation to climate change. They give an overview of climatic trends and future scenarios for the country, and identify the key areas of vulnerability, along with adaptation needs. NAPAs are also a good initial source of references for country-specific adaptation activities.

National Communications are another good background source of information and are available for a wider range of countries than the NAPAs. National Communications contain information on greenhouse gas emissions, climate change scenarios for the country, potential impacts across sectors and adaptation options in different sectors.

For climate change scenarios and regional-country level vulnerability and adaptation the relevant IPCC chapters provide a useful synopsis and list of references. For IPCC predictions of climate change at a regional level first of all check Chapter 11 of the Physical science report. For general information on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability by region or by sector, with good further references and illustrative case studies see the outputs from working group 2

The next step, having gathered some base level information about climate trends and vulnerability to climate change would be to have a look for adaptation projects which are ongoing or have been completed in the coiuntry of interest. The UNDP home site and adaptation site, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) all have good databases of adaptation projects which are searchable at a country specific level, and in some cases by sector, to find the larger adaptation projects. This will ensure that Sida is not repeating work that is already ongoing, and can learn from the experiences of these projects. Another place to look is on the Linking Climate Adaptation site which has a collection of case studies on adaptation.

As well as NAPAs and National Communications, countries have also submitted technology needs assessments to the UNFCCC, outlining technologies identified as necessary in each country to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses and to enable adaptation to climate change. To see individual assessments, follow the link and click on Needs assessments then Country Studies. These assessments will be a useful starting point for thinking about development cooperation.

General country information which may be useful background to understanding vulnerability and adaptation can be found in the Human Development Reports. There are reports for regions of India, and for Albania, Serbia and Kosovo. See Human Development Reports.

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Institutional Capacity

This is a difficult area which changes very rapidly. We think that the best way to deal with the issue is for us create a short note on institutional capacity containing the 5-6 key questions that you would ask to local experts in order to gauge what the institutional capacity to adapt to climate change is.

Networks

There are various networks of organisations working on climate change and adaptation in different parts of the world which often include people with strong expertise at a country level. These are networks which we are part of which we should use and look in when responding to requests from the sida helpdesks. We will use our contacts in these networks to provide information to sida, but the sida helpdesks should use the websites provided where it is mentioned that good documentation and reports are provided.

CLACC – Capacity strengthening of Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change. Focus is on Africa and Asia.

RING alliance – Operate more broadly but concentrate their climate change activities through Clacc.

AIACC - Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change. Active in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Useful source of reports on impacts and vulnerability in the afore-mentioned regions.

CCAA – Climate Change Adaptation in Africa. Run by DFID and IDRC. Database of different adaptation projects they fund in Africa.

ACCCA – Advancing Capacity to Support Climate Change Adaptation. Active in Africa and Asia, with an adaptation projects database searchable by country and thematic area.

Country Specific Information

Note: Kosovo only technically declared independence on the 17th Feb 2008, and is not yet a Party to the UNFCCC. Coupled with the history of the country this makes it very difficult to find any work on climate change that has been done in the country. It may be that the best way to find information on impacts and trends is to extrapolate from assessments in neighbouring countries such as Albania and Macedonia