News 6 of 10

June 6, Nairobi – Richard Odingo, Vice-Chair of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Professor Laban Ogallo, Director of the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), addressed a gathering at IDRC’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa.

 

Professor Odingo presented on the implications climate change will have for development in Eastern and Southern Africa. He warned that while its impacts would negatively affect all sectors, the quality and availability of freshwater would be hardest hit. He stressed that sub Saharan countries needed to prepare now for these challenges.

 

Professor Ogallo underlined the contribution of climate change to natural disasters such as floods and droughts, and the likelihood that it would increase famine and epidemics of disease.

 

Kenyan ministry officials, researchers, science journalists, IDRC staff members, and NGO representatives were among those who attended the seminar, along with representatives of the British and Canadian High Commissions, the UK Department for International Development, UNEP and UN-Habitat.

 

Discussion touched on the challenges of getting policymakers to seriously consider the economic impacts of climate change; the need for information on climate change to reach the community level; and the urgency of seeing leadership on climate change exercised by Africa’s national governments and intergovernmental bodies such as the African Union.

 

Presentations by Professors Odingo and Ogallo, available in English only, can be found below.

News 6 of 10