A study has found that political leadership and the role of international donors has affected the evolution of climate policy in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
The project, carried out under the Future Climate for Africa UMFULA project and supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and UK Natural Environment Research Council, involved a close look at climate change adaptation policy and planning nationally between 2012-2017.
Research found the intersection between leadership and funding in the three countries was closely associated with the priority placed on the climate agenda. It showed the “convergence of power and resources – not only from the perspective of donors but also from political leadership.”
Climate Change News spoke to Katharine Vincent, co-author of the paper and a climate change adaptation specialist, about what the results might mean for the region and for the wider international community.
Why was it important to look at the evolution of climate adaptation in SSA?
Rather than just looking at whether or not policies exist, looking at what factors have been important in bringing them about provides insight into how to support those factors to promote effective policy implementation and effective and equitable adaptation to climate change among all sectors and for all citizens in those countries.
What do the results say about how they are adapting to climate change, and the way they will continue to in the future?
All three countries have experienced recent political change (presidential elections and changes in administration) and been subject to different levels of donor financial inputs which has affected the way in which climate change is (or isn’t) prioritised.
The key now will be effective and equitable implementation. And now and the coming year will be particular exciting because Malawi has just got a new president (who celebrated 100 days in power last week), Tanzania has a presidential election on Wednesday (28th October) and Zambia will have a presidential election in 2021.
Given that our research shows that the role of national leadership strongly affects the progression of the national climate change agenda, we can hope that the leaders will commit to implementing the agenda.
Why is this important for neighbouring countries?
In this case we traced the emergence and evolution of national climate adaptation planning in three countries and found that – although the ways in which they had played a role differed – it was those two factors (political leadership and the role of donors) that were important.
We cannot necessarily generalise that they will be important in all countries – but this does highlight the importance of understanding the political economy of decisions to be able to effectively and equitably support climate adaptation.
And why is it important for global institutions and governments to take heed of these findings?
Besides affecting national adaptation agendas, power and influence will similarly affect the implementation of those policies, which may lead to winners and losers.
Understanding this is important for things like adaptation finance – to ensure that it goes to support adaptation of the most in need.
Throughout the process, what did you learn?
I learned that power and influence is behind most policy decisions and interrogating and understanding the sources of this power and influence is important to understand how and why decisions are made.
If you understand this, you can understand how to effectively advocate (or rather, with whom to advocate!) In this paper, we were looking specifically at national level agendas but, of course, once policies are in place political economy also plays a role in determining the often-uneven ways in which policies are implemented, and who wins and who loses from that process. (
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