Rwanda’s climate change policies commended

MUHANGA - An official of the Climatic Change and Development-Adaptation by Reducing Vulnerability (CC-DARE) programme has commended Rwanda’s efforts to remove barriers and create opportunities for integrating climate change adaptation into national development planning and decision-making frameworks. Bubu Jallow, the CC-DARE programme manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, made the remarks during a national joint monitoring and evaluation workshop on climatic change awareness held Muhanga district, in the southern province yesterday. He noted that Rwanda’s approach of engaging the civil society in addressing issues of climatic change has yielded significant results. “This example should be taken up by other sub-Saharan countries- which should create a proper system of organization and implementation by shifting from using the central government as key implementer and involve the civil society,” he said. Jallow also stated that Rwanda needs to address the issue of settlements-which are mostly prone to danger caused by landslides and heavy rains. He noted the Giswati experience of land use should be duplicated countrywide to avoid such environmental risks. The meeting brought together key players in environmental protection and donor organization, to evaluate the results of first CC-DARE phase of -sensitization, mobilization and awareness among the communities. The results indicated an increase in awareness. However, key partners called for more financial assistance to implement activities aimed at addressing issues of climatic change. They also recommended the need to share information and developing a communication strategy, documentation, close collaboration and maintenance of the existing projects among others. The joint UNEP-UNDP programme-CC DARE, provides demand-driven, flexible and rapid financial and technical support to 15 Sub-Saharan countries. Ends

National

Rwanda’s climate change policies commended