WANA Institute Hosts Inception Workshop for Response Strategies to Climate Change Project

Climate change is having widespread and adverse impacts on the West Asia-North Africa region. As this phenomenon progresses, increasing drought and variable precipitation patterns will adversely impact agricultural productivity and water scarcity. Because climate change research has predominately focused on the vulnerability of large geographic areas, the needs, risks and adaptive capacity of community-level stakeholder groups have tended to be overlooked.

In response, the project "Response Strategies for Climate Change Vulnerable Communities in Jordan” implemented by the West Asia and North Africa Institute (WANA) in partnership with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) seeks to better understand community-level vulnerability to climate change and identify the principal drivers behind such vulnerability. Using empirical field data, the study aims to articulate practical and cost-efficient recommendations to feed into policy debates and adaptation strategies.

Last week, the WANA Institute hosted a inception workshop for the project, which engaged field-based climate change experts with the aim of developing a shared vision, enhancing networking, and exchanging of climate change up-to-date data. It also sought to build criteria to select a vulnerable community, which ideally represents the majority of climate change vulnerable communities in Jordan.

The study will also examine ways to increase local community climate change resilience by identifying gaps in the resilience framework and providing key recommendations towards increasing it. The evidence gleaned will enable decision makers, donors, international bodies and national agencies to develop targeted programs to mitigate climate change impacts on these vulnerable groups.