Climate Change: Effects and Adaptive Measures in Africa

Abstract

Climate change has constituted a global menace to standard of living in many countries of the world. The developing countries including the Africa continent are among the most susceptible to climate change impact. In order to ensure environmental sustainability, food security and socioeconomic growth in this region, strategic mitigation and adaptation to climate change impacts needs to be employed. This review paper highlights on climate change impact and adaptation in Africa. Prolonged and intensified droughts has been recorded in Eastern Africa; unprecedented floods in Western Africa; depletion of rain forests in Equatorial Africa; and an increase in ocean acidity around Africa’s southern coast. As a result of these, food, health, water and energy security have been threatened, therefore undermining Africa’s ability to grow and develop. Meanwhile, temporal migration pattern has been adopted in Sudan and Ethiopia as a way to adapt to recurrent drought; in adapting to floods, most western part of Africa have adopted building houses on stilts and cultivation of floating vegetable plots. Also, crops biotechnology developments have been applied to increase Agriculture production in many parts of Africa. However, the level of adaptation has not kept pace with the rate of climate change effects; it is important to develop sustainable ways through which the vulnerable in Africa will build climate change-resilient livelihoods. This will require substantial investment in: income diversification, disaster-risk management, empowerment of women and other marginalized social groups, provision of a reliable system of meteorological alerts, effective extension services and the establishment of independent networks of information exchange between and among communities across the region. Climate change will have significant impacts on communities and livelihood. It is important to assist the vulnerable group by boosting their adaptive capacity in response to climate change so as to safeguard sustainable development and food security improvement of their population.