Climate Change Adaptation in the Arab States Best practices and lessons learned United Nations Development Programme 2018 | 1 UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in nearly 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. www.undp.org The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems. Since then, the GEF has provided over $17 billion in grants and mobilized an additional $88 billion in financing for more than 4000 projects in 170 countries. Today, the GEF is an international partnership of 183 countries, international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector that addresses global environmental issues. www.thegef.org United Nations Development Programme July 2018 Copyright © UNDP 2018 Manufactured in Bangkok Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH) United Nations Development Programme 3rd Floor United Nations Service Building Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok, 10200, Thailand www.adaptation-undp.org Authors: The report preparation was led by Tom Twining-Ward in close collaboration with Kishan Khoday, with Cara Tobin as lead author and Fadhel Baccar, Janine Twyman Mills, Walid Ali and Zubair Murshed as contributing authors. The publication was professionally reviewed by fellow UNDP colleagues, Amal Aldababseh, Greg Benchwick, Hanan Mutwaki, Mohamed Bayoumi, and Walid Ali. Valuable external expert review, comments, and suggestions were provided by Hussein El-Atfy (Arab Water Council), Ibrahim Abdel Gelil (Arabian Gulf University), and William Dougherty (Climate Change Research Group). Graphic design by Greg Benchwick. Cover photo: A portrait of 16-year-old Yusra Suleiman al Toum Ahmed in El Fasher, Sudan. Ms. Ahmed, an aspiring journal- ist, is a member of her country’s Parliament of Students, Quranic organization and Students’ Union. El Fasher, Sudan. UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran. This publication or parts of it may not be reproduced, stored by means of any system or transmitted, in any form by any medium, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or of any other type, without the prior permission of the United Nations Development Programme. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or the UN Member States. 2 | Climate change adaptation in the Arab States: Best practices and lessons learned from country experiences United Nations Development Programme 2018 | 3 Table of Contents Foreword 6 Executive summary 10 Acknowledgements 12 Abbreviations and acronyms 14 Introduction 17 1.1. Purpose of the report 17 1.2 Problem declaration 18 1.3 The SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 19 1.4 Implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change 20 Climate change scenarios and projected impacts in the Arab region 23 2.1 Temperature 24 2.2 Percipitation 24 2.3 Sea Level Rise 24 2.4 Natural Hazards 24 2.5 Impacts and fragilities 25 2.5.1 Economy 25 2.5.2 Food security 26 2.5.3 Water security 26 2.5.4 Displacements 26 2.5.5 Human health 27 2.5.6 Gender aspects 27 2.5.7 Conflict 27 2.6 Maladaptive practices 27 2.7 Challenges for effective governance 28 Regional collaborations to build climate resilience 31 3.1. Regional Frameworks for Action 31 3.1.1 The League of Arab States 31 3.1.2 The Arab Framework Action Plan on Climate Change 32 3.1.3 Arab Strategies for Sustainable Development and Water Security 32 3.1.4 The Arab Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 33 3.2. Regional initiatives 33 3.2.1 The UNDP Arab Climate Resilience Initiative 33 3.2.2. One UN Partnerships: The SDG Climate Nexus Facility 33 3.2.3 International Financial Institution Partnerships: UNDP and the Islamic Development Bank 33 Country actions to build climate resilience 37 4.1 UNDP projects in the Arab Region 37 4.1.1 Climate change adaptation projects 37 4.1.2 Disaster risk reduction projects 38 4.1.3 Barriers for the region 38 4.2 Case Studies 40 Case study 1: Reducing climate-related vulnerabilities of agro-pastoralists in Djibouti 40 Case study 2: Djibouti shade garden development 42 Case study 3: Developing national capacities for disaster risk management in Djibouti 44 Case study 4: Adapting to risks of climate change associated sea-level rise in the Nile Delta 46 Case study 5: Enhancing Climate Change Adaptation in the North Coast and Nile Delta Regions in Egypt 48 Case study 6: Capacity building for crisis, disaster and risk management in Egypt 50 Case study 7: Enhancing capacities to reduce disaster risk & integrate climate change adaptation in Jordan 50 Case study 8: Developing disaster risk management capacities in Iraq 53 Case study 9: Disaster risk reduction and management in Lebanon 53 Case study 10: Enhancing capacities for disaster risk management in Palestine 53 Case study 11: Enhancing resilience capacities of vulnerable Somali communities and ecosystems 54 Case study 12: Disaster risk reduction and recovery in Somalia 56 Case study 13: Building climate resilience in the agriculture and water sectors in Sudan 58 Case study 13b: Implementing Priority Adaptation Measures, especially for women headed households in Sudan 60 4 | Climate change adaptation in the Arab States: Best practices and lessons learned from country experiences Case study 14: Rain-fed farming and pastoral communities and complementary micro-finance and weather-based index insurance services 62 Case study 15: National disaster risk management in Sudan 64 Case study 16: Supporting Tunisia’s most vulnerable coastal areas 66 Case study 17: Support to disaster risk reduction in Tunisia 68 Case study 18: Integrating Water Harvesting Technologies to Enable Rural Yemeni Populations to Adapt 70 Observations and lessons learned 73 5.1 Policy enabling environments for adaptation 73 5.2 Capacity building for locals on all levels 74 5.3 Interlinking CCA and DRR 74 5.4 Project design 74 5.5 Operation and maintenance (O&M) 74 5.6 Decentralization and implications of community-based organizations 75 5.7 Conducting cost-benefit analyses using economics of adaptation principles 75 5.8 Innovative best practices 75 5.9 Community revolving funds and microfinance 76 5.10 Ensuring access to financial services in remote locations 76 5.11 Promoting resilience through livelihood diversification 77 5.12 Project Monitoring and Evaluation 77 Way forward 79 Conclusion 83 References 86 Photo: UNDP United Nations Development Programme 2018 | 5 Foreword A turning point The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new In response, countries across the region now seek to expand Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sendai international cooperation and take action under the Paris Agreement to build climate resilient societies. To this end, Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction together mark a UNDP works closely with our national partners to build re- turning point in development policy globally and in the silience of institutions and communities to anticipate, ab- Arab region. sorb and adapt to increasingly complex risks from climate change. UNDP has rapidly expanded its support in recent The vision these instruments set for a new balance between years in this regard, through a strong partnership with the people and planet represents a shift in the trajectory of Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund development cooperation. The new 2030 Agenda for Sus- (GCF), the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), the Spe- tainable Development highlights that for development cial Climate Change Fund (SCCF) and key bilateral donors. to be sustainable it must become resilient to increasingly As we empower countries and communities, UNDP pro- complex risks faced in the world today. This is particularly motes integrated solutions to achieve SDG 13 on climate relevant for the Arab region. action and the Paris Agreement, while bringing co-benefits for SDGs on food and water security, health, gender equal- The Arab region was the birthplace of agricultural civili- ity, combating land degradation and reducing the loss of zation and for thousands of years has been able to cope biodiversity. with risks from climatic hazards. But climate change is now happening at a pace unlike anything before, stretching the Climate change poses one of the single greatest threats to ability of societies to cope. Alongside the spread of war and the future of development in the Arab region, but it also conflict, climate change has now emerged as one of the presents an opportunity to innovate and transition to a greatest drivers of change in the region today, accelerating more resilient future in line with the vision set forth in the the rise of social vulnerability and exacerbating trends of re- 2030 Agenda. As elaborated in this report, innovative bot- source insecurity and displacement. Over the past decade, tom up solutions are emerging, which if scaled up, can help the region has witnessed cycles of drought, the frequency sustain communities and ecosystems towards 2030 and be- and severity of which are beyond anything seen for hun- yond. UNDP stands ready to continue and expand our coop- dreds of years in the region. This has contributed to situa- eration with national partners and local communities, who tions of famine and food insecurity, loss of livelihoods and may today stand on the front lines of climate risks, but with life, and the displacement of millions. While the Arab region dedicated support from the international community may is already the planet’s most water insecure and food import well emerge as the new innovators and success stories for dependent region, temperatures in the region are now the sustainable, resilient society of 2030.