Water action plan at COP27 gives hope to drought-ravaged Africa
- November 16, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
Water action plan at COP27 gives hope to drought-ravaged Africa
Subject: Environment
Context:
- World leaders at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change launched a water adaptation and resilience action plan on November 14, 2022. The initiative will have an Africa-first focus, giving hope to drought-ravaged populations, especially in the Horn of Africa.
About the Action on Water Adaptation or Resilience (AWARe)-
- The multisectoral initiative was a result of collaboration between various stakeholders, including the African Union (AU), Water and Climate Coalition Leaders, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), among others.
- Aims to foster political efforts in establishing pan-African water hubs.
- It will address water security as part of climate change adaptation and will focus on three priorities:
- Decrease water losses worldwide and improve water supply;
- propose and support implementing policies for cooperative water-related adaptation action
- cooperation and interlinkages between water and climate action.
- One of the critical goals of the initiative is to ensure there is 50 per cent less damage from floods and droughts by 2030.
- The action plan has six comprehensive data-driven solutions it recommends regional blocks or heads of governments to put in place to enable a quick transition from awareness to action.
- A set of global water information services like accurate hydrological data to help understand the scarcity and availability of water per region.
- Water and climate stock take that integrates water and climate-related databases to inform decision-making.
- A cryosphere information mechanism that details data on frozen water parts of the earth
- A new financing rationale focusing on areas of priority
- Need for local engagements on how to implement climate-resilient investments on the ground at different government levels
- Need for regional cooperation are necessary for shared early warning systems to reduce the impact of loss.
- The plan calls for concerted efforts to stop pollution, manage wastewater and restore or preserve water towers and catchment areas, including glaciers and snow that are melting away, impacting sources of streams and rivers.
Increasing severity of hazards-
- Over the past 20 years, water-related hazards have consistently increased in frequency and intensity, with at least 1.6 billion people affected by floods and 1.4 billion by droughts, according to a World Bank report of 2021.
- Weather, climate or water-related disaster has occurred on average every single day within the past 50 years (1970-2019), taking the lives of 115 people daily and causing US$ 202 million in daily losses as per the study carried out by WMO in 2021.
- Early warning systems do not cover a third of the world’s population, doubling the risk of the number of individuals exposed to floods and droughts due to climate change.
Horn of Africa-
- The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.
- Located on the easternmost part of the African mainland, it is the fourth-largest peninsula in the world.
- It is composed of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti; broader definitions also include parts or all of Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda.
- The term Greater Horn Region (GHR) can additionally include Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
- It lies along the southern boundary of the Red Sea and extends hundreds of kilometres into the Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean and shares a maritime border with the Arabian Peninsula of Western Asia.