UN urges government to work on climate change mitigation

The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Horn of Africa, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh has urged the government to prepare climate change mitigation measures.
Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Horn of Africa.

By Benjamin Takpiny

The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Horn of Africa, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh has urged the government to prepare climate change mitigation measures.

 She said that it is important to take into consideration climate events when doing planning across a whole spectrum of national activities in order to mitigate the worst impact of these shocks, and to prepare communities to adapt and to build resilience, to cope with these disasters in a more effective manner.

 “Within this region, the Horn of Africa generally, over the last five years, there have been very significant climate developments. There has been extended droughts in some parts of the region, and there has been extensive flooding in other parts of the region as well. And I’m sure here in South Sudan, in Unity State and in other parts of the country over the last couple of years, you have seen the impact of extensive flooding and that has also been the situation within the Abyei Administrative Area,” Tetteh said on Friday during press conference in Juba.

Tetteh and the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix ended their week-long visit to the region, where they met with political leaders in South Sudan and traveled to the contested province of Abyei to support efforts to address rising insecurity.

She said that it is important to pay attention to climate developments, so that they do not take communities, governments by surprise.

 “Luckily, within the Horn of Africa, IGAD has the IGAD Climate Predictions and Application Centre (ICPAC) based in Nairobi that has very sophisticated systems that is able to predict what the climate patterns within the region are going to be in a particular month in the year ahead in order to help using this forecasting for preparation. And so it’s important that government agencies, but not just government agencies but communities as well, use the information that is made available to ensure that they can anticipate some of these climate shocks and begin to respond to them,” Tetteh said.

 “For instance, where you have increased flooding, obviously this is not going to be an area where you’re going to be able to migrate your cattle to if that was previously a route for the migration of cattle from one part of South Sudan to another. Where you have a situation where there’s a conflict, let’s talk about what’s happening in Sudan right now, it’s also clear that is also going to impact those migratory routes. These are things that with a little bit of effort, can be anticipated,” she added.

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