By Duncan Mboyah
More than 10 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries will be equipped with online tools to track and monitor the progress of their Nationally Determined Commitments (NDC) implementation.
These include Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Côte D’Ivoire.
The tool has been developed by the Nairobi-based African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS), a pan -African science policy body, to help African countries improve and fast track monitoring of their efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Prof. Nicholas Ozor, executive director of ATPS said that the online-hosted NDC Index will provide a comprehensive platform for governments and stakeholders to improve NDC implementation across SSA.
“The online index tool is meant at promoting data-driven policy decisions, fostering regional cooperation, and enhances transparency in climate action efforts,” Dr. Ozor told journalists in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
Prof. Ozor said that ATPS is advocating for the adoption of the NDC tracking system to enhance decision-making and compliance with the Paris Agreement.
The official revealed that ATPS and its partners aim to gauge the status of NDC implementation since the Paris Agreement provides little guidance on what and how climate change adaptation would be included in the NDCs.
Most African NDCs, he added, highlight a number of cross-cutting strategies in addressing their mitigation ambitions as well as their adaptation needs at a time when the continent is already dealing with increased severity and frequency of climate risks and hazards.
Prof. Ozor observed that Africa is in the mix since it produces less greenhouse gases but over-relies on climate-sensitive production sectors such as agriculture and tourism and also has limited adaptive capacity of the people.
The online tool, he revealed, will indicate areas among the components where each country is performing well and where they are not performing well, hence, enabling policy decisions to improve in areas where performance is low.
“The tool promotes comparability among countries and regions to spur healthy competition to improve country and regional compliance based on the results,” he added.
Prof. Ozor said that ATPS has identified strategic NDC implementation focal persons in the twelve countries who will be trained to effectively measure progress in their NDC implementation using tracking tools and indexes.
ATPS, he said, is also advocating for the use of the NDC implementation tracking tools and index for decision-making and in fostering compliance with the Paris Agreement in SSA.
The project, he added, is utilizing the key products from the pilot study that had already been developed and validated in eight African countries in 12 selected SSA countries to effectively measure their NDC implementation progress using the tracking tools and indexes.
The project was piloted and validated in eight African countries to build the capacity of focal persons.
It is expected that the project will contribute to the increased capacity of countries in the collection and utilization of NDCs data, and the use of tracking tools and indexes to make informed policy and programmatic decisions.
ATPS has developed a training manual for trainers of trainers to help upscale the uptake of the technology in the continent.
The project is being funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and implemented by ATPS as the lead implementing agency and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) and West Africa Green Economic Development Institute (WAGEDI).
