The symposium, which is the 5th International Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation in Africa, is scheduled to take place today Thursday 2nd March 2023 at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, Bijilo.
Giving an insight into the event, Dr. Mamma Sawaneh, of RepGam The Gambia, acknowledged that Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change.
"As reported in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change is expected to have widespread impacts on African societies, and Africans’ interaction with the natural environment," he said.
He indicated that there are also signs that the impacts of climate change are already being felt across all sectors including education, agriculture and the availability of water resources, among others.
The severe consequences to the above-mentioned areas, he added, illustrates the need for a better understanding of how climate change affects African countries and for the identification of processes, methods and tools, which may help African nations to adapt.
He added that there is also a perceived need to showcase successful examples of how to cope with the social, economic and political problems posed by climate change in Africa. In this context, African universities have a key role to play, as centres of research and teaching, and as key drivers of innovation.
Dr. Sawaneh said the purpose of the upcoming symposium is to discuss the means via which African universities can support the resilience capacity of African countries.
The event, he added, would also serve the purpose of showcasing experiences from research, field projects and best practice in climate change adaptation in African universities, which may be replicated or upscaled in the continent.
The symposium as planned will be a truly interdisciplinary event, organised within the framework of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063 of the African Union, mobilising African and non-African scholars undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in the African continent.
