Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative for the Southern Africa subregion

The priority-setting workshop for the Southern Africa subregion was held on 16-18 November 2015 in Johannesburg

As part of the implementation of the Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative (LAKI) for Southern Africa subregion, SouthSouthNorth, a NWP partner organization, collaborated with UNEP and UNFCCC secretariat in organizing the priority-setting workshop held on 16-18 November 2015 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The purpose of this workshop was to identify a set of prioritized adaptation knowledge gaps and a preliminary list of response actions and associated institutions for addressing these gaps in the subregion.

Using four criteria for prioritizing knowledge gaps: sustainability, scale of positive impact on closing the gap, urgency and cross-disciplinary nature of gap, ten expert participants (multidisciplinary stakeholder group or MSG in short) discussed and agreed to the pool of 16 priority adaptation knowledge gaps for the Southern Africa subregion through a multi-criteria analysis approach.

The MSG also provided a preliminary identification of potential response actions (in terms of concrete deliverables and target beneficiaries) to address this pool of priority knowledge gaps and also provided pointers as to the best placed organisations to undertake such responses.

The list of priority knowledge gaps identified for the Southern Africa subregion are:

No.	Priority knowledge gap	Beneficiaries
1	Lack of knowledge on the vulnerability of and impacts of climate change on river basins and watershed systems	River basin authority, department responsible for water resources management
2	Lack of information on available adaptation options for agriculture	Extension workers
3	Lack of knowledge on the sensitivity of agro-ecological zones across the sub-region to historic and future climate change	National planners, land managers
4	Lack of knowledge in implementing appropriate climate risk management strategies for agriculture	Extension workers National committee for disaster management; extension workers
5	Lack of knowledge on the vulnerability of and impacts of climate change on river basins and watershed systems	National and regional water planners) (River basin Authority, department responsible for water resources management
6	Lack of usable knowledge products on short and long-term meteorological data and seasonal forecasting for agriculture planning	Extension workers and farmers
7	Lack of clear information on the relative contribution of natural variability, climate change and other human impacts on trends in the hydrological cycles	Water resource planners, climate change department, meteorological department
8	Limited knowledge on technologies available for adaptation in the agricultural sector	Extension workers Small scale farmers Technology providers, financers, and planners
9	Lack of knowledge on relationship between climate change and human health including the geographic distribution of human diseases	Ministry of health: Public health department
10	Insufficient knowledge on the climate change impacts on hydro power generation	National level energy planners
11	Lack of knowledge on effective integration of climate model results into decision-making	National level planners
12	Lack of knowledge on how to integrate climate science into spatial planning	City planners Champions Higher education students
13	Lack of integrated approach to sustainable energy planning for households	National energy planners
14	Inadequate access to long-term meteorological data, that limits rainfall-runoff modelling for rivers and floodplains	National water resource planners/researchers
15	Lack of knowledge on the sensitivity of agro-ecological zones across the sub-region to historic and future climate change	Ministry of Agriculture: crop production departments, national level extension planners
16	Lack of policy relevant information on the impacts of climate change on forestry, biodiversity and structure , functions and provisions of ecosystems	Ministry responsible for Forestry, biodiversity