The ARUA-CD has come together to work on a number of projects
Supporting Partnerships and Networking (SPaN)
In Africa, the community of professionals and researchers working on the complex interrelationships between climate change and development is relatively small.
Through a networking grant provided by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Fund, the SPaN project works to both maximise existing expertise and build new networks and communities of practice. It does this by funding student and staff exchanges across the ARUA-CD network, pairing PhD candidates, postdoctoral and early career researchers with senior staff who have specialist knowledge and expertise. Staff and students are also supported to attend the SPaN Summer School, as well as other conference and networking events, and senior members of each institution are encouraged to present lectures at other partner institutions.
Climate-Resilient African Landscapes (CRAL)
Understanding the social and environmental impacts of climate change and other drivers of change in Africa requires systemic and longitudinal place-based research. Through a landscape scale of analysis and action it is possible to gain a systemic understanding of the interactions between global and local change and risk and individual livelihood options, agency and adaptation strategies. Landscapes thus provide an ideal unit of analysis for considering the interacting impacts of change on biodiversity, ecosystem services and local livelihoods, and for realising new pathways towards a more resilient future.
Focusing on climate change responses, the Climate-Resilient African Landscapes (CRAL) project is establishing landscape-level ‘living labs’ in South Africa, Kenya and Ghana to build a holistic, comparative and in-depth understanding of multiple components of each landscape. The team also interacts with communities and other stakeholders to identify problems and explore solutions to climate change and other systemic pressures.
CRAL is a research consortium within the World Universities Network. Its members include the Universities of Cape Town, Alberta, Leeds, Nairobi and Ghana.
20/20 Adaptation Professionals Programme
The 20/20 Adaptation Professionals Programme is supporting 20 adaptation professionals from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to work as Fellows in the run‐up to the 2020 Climate Adaptation Summit to be hosted by The Netherlands.
Funded by the International Development Research Centre, the programme supports exceptional early and mid‐career professionals with policy, private sector and research backgrounds to promote the implementation of the work of the Global Commission on Adaptation. This includes the GCAs flagship report to be delivered to the UN Secretary‐General’s Climate Summit in September 2019 and subsequent Action Tracks.
Advancing Resilience in Low Income Housing Using Climate Change Science and Big Data Analytics (ADRELO)
Building resilience in the face of disaster risk is vital for vulnerable communities across the globe.
Focusing on Brazil, East Africa and North America, this project investigates the barriers and drivers of technology adoption when attempting to enhance disaster resilience in vulnerable communities. Through the design and prototyping of affordable, disaster-resilient, low-income housing systems that use locally sourced materials the project team is working with the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) to generate data and information through action-based. Furthermore, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Center (ICPAC) brings together eight East African countries with some of the key functions being disaster risk management, climate monitoring and early warning, dissemination and awareness raising, and capacity building.