Numbers of households and population by Local Government Areas, Districts, and Settlements, 2013, The Gambia

The 2000 National Greenhouse Gas Inventory of The Gambia shows national emission total of about 20.02 Million Tons CO2 Equivalent (TCO2E) and per capita emissions of 13.5 TCO2E. This is insignificant compared to other country emissions. However, as a Party to the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, Gambia is willing to participate in mitigating global emissions and their concentrations in the atmosphere with the first step of conducting a mitigation assessment and developing this NAMA document. Trend analysis of climate data from 1951 to date shows a progressively warming and drier Gambia. Using General Circulation Model outputs, national temperatures are projected to increase by about 0.3OC in 2010 to about 3.9OC in 2100. Rainfall is also projected to decrease by about 1% in 2010 to about 54% in 2100. This confirms previous results of in the First National Communication that with increase in temperatures under a warming climate, rainfall in The Gambia would correspondingly decrease. The development challenges of The Gambia will be significant as the country faces complex economic, social and technological choices based on the climate change impacts already enumerated in the preceding paragraph. This is compounded by the inadequate capacities, inadequacies in the existing technologies and the non availability of domestic funding from both the public and private sectors for climate change.

Northern Ghana has been a pilot region for implementing drinking water programs. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has acted as a key player in constructing hand pumps and small-town water systems, as well as in designing institutional frameworks for their delivery and management, which have been subsequently up-scaled to national level. Water rights are neither uniform nor immune to institutional drawbacks. The ethnographic study analyzes the history of water supply in a rural settlement from the mid-1960s through to 2012, and outlines the evolution of local law. It shows that water development is a non-progressive, multi-directional and hegemonic process that is driven by institutional bricolage and rule making in external and local political arenas.

Population of communitis in the Oti river basin, Togo. The numbers are on village, commune, and prefecture level. Prefectures: Kpendjal and Oti.

NAPAs provide a process for the LDCs to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs with regard to adaptation to climate change - those needs for which further delay could increase vulnerability or lead to increased costs at a later stage. The rationale for NAPAs rests on the limited ability of the LDCs to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. In the NAPA process, prominence is given to community-level input as an important source of information, recognizing that grassroots communities are the main stakeholders. NAPAs use existing information and no new research is needed. They are action-oriented, country-driven, are flexible and based on national circumstances. In order to effectively address urgent and immediate adaptation needs, NAPA documents are presented in a simple format, easily understood both by policy-level decision-makers and the public.

With a national electrification rate of an estimated 40 per cent and with certain rural areas having an electrification rate as low as 6 per cent, the time is ripe in The Gambia for the Rural Electrification with Renewable Energy (RE) Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA). A number of building blocks have already been put in place in the country. The 2013 Renewable Energy Act provides the framework for both on and off-grid renewable energy tariffs and net metering, as well as establishing a national RE Fund. There has been development of pilot renewable energy projects as well as diesel powered multi-function platforms, which provide energy access for economic activities in rural areas. The NAMA has five key objectives which are: 1. Increase the level of renewable energy (for electricity) and contribute to the national long-term target of increasing the share of renewable energy within the power generation sector. 2. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the power generation sector. 3. Increase the rural population’s access to sustainable electricity. 4. Encourage an increase in rural community income generation, and improve rural livelihoods. 5. Increase the level of private sector participation within the power sector. These objectives will be accomplished through a number of activities, divided into Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 activities will include the establishment of two types of ventures which will connect unelectrified rural communities: RE Community Energy Centres (RE-CEC) and RE Micro-Grids (RE-MGs). Phase 2 ventures will comprise RE systems which will displace thermal generation at existing regional grids (referred to as RE Displacement Systems—RE-DIS) and RE independent power producers (RE-IPPs).

This study provides an analysis of environmental observations by farmers, as well as of models of blame in Northern Ghana, an agricultural region of high vulnerability to climate change. Qualitative data were collected through a standardised questionnaire on the community’s consensus on how to explain observed changes. Responses were transcribed to allow content analysis. Natural data sets confirmed most local observations, but older age and the affectedness of the respondents were crucial in determining the views. Climate change was generally given a lower priority by the respondents compared to other manifestations of change, such as infrastructural development, human-spiritual relations and changes in social relations. Moreover, the respondents made reference to the blessing of the land and the destruction of the land. The destruction of the land was understood in a metaphorical way as the result of eroding social relationships and stagnation, as well as norm-breaking and lack of unity within the community. Thus, climate change was perceived in local social terms rather than based on global natural science knowledge. The article concludes that the anthropological analysis is meaningful and may serve as an entry point for further planning of adaptation and public education.