The first round of consultations for the climate change national adaptation planning was kicked off in Harare today, drawing representatives from the government, academia, the private sector, traditional leaders, vulnerable groups, and the media.
In his opening remarks at the National Adaptation Planning – Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting System Theory of Change Workshop for the Northern Region on 15 September 2020 at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Mr. Munesu Munodawafa, the Permanent Secretary for Environment, Climate, Tourism, and Hospitality Industry said climate change is a topical issue given its impact with aspects of extreme weather events such as flooding and droughts that are on the increase in recent years.
He said rainfall seasons are increasingly becoming uncertain, threatening livelihoods and economic performance. The situation is worsened by the relationship between poor rainfall and gross domestic product (GDP) performance, a situation that calls for urgent climate action.
“The government has responded to this urgent need for climate action by facilitating for an enabling environment for climate change programming in the country. As the country develops its medium-term development strategy, it is taking concerted efforts to integrate climate change issues in the plans to ensure our development efforts are climate proofed against unprecedented climate change vagaries.
“As part of this mainstreaming agenda, it is critical to establish a national system for tracking adaptation and resilience-building intervention informed by the project and programme based monitoring. The country needs to enhance coordination, coherence, and meaningful impact of targeted climate change programming in line with the incoming National Development Strategy (2021-2025. There is a need for the country to collectively take climate action in order to develop a low carbon trajectory whilst building resilience and climate-proofing communities and socio-economic sectors alike,” Mr. Munodawafa said.
Emily F. Matingo, the Climate Change Scientist – Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the National Adaptation Planning (NAP) Readiness Project Coordinator in the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism, and Hospitality Industry said the purpose of the workshop is to solicit stakeholder inputs for a Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting system for the NAP process in Zimbabwe.
“We intend to draft Goals for the National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change in Zimbabwe. Together with stakeholders, we will jointly identify and prioritize sectors vulnerable to climate change and its impacts that require adaptation interventions. We will also identify manageable top priority adaptation options to be implemented at all levels in the country and across key development sectors.
“Thus, there is a need to develop a Logical Framework Analysis for the implementation of the Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting System with (i)) milestones; (ii) performance indicators at national and sub-national levels; (iii) short, medium and long-term targets; (iv) outputs and outcomes; (v) monitoring and reviewing tools and templates; (vi) assessment planning; and (vii) follow-up actions,” Matingo said.
The workshops will be building blocks towards a sustainable Monitoring, Reviewing, and Reporting System for climate change adaptation in Zimbabwe informed by medium to long-term national development strategies and plans.