By Olimatou Coker
The GCCA+ Climate Resilient, Coastal, and Marine Zone project, in partnership with its implementing partners, the National Environment Agency, the Department of Water Resources, and other government agencies, on Friday concluded 2 weeks training for 16 participants on climate change scenario development for planing in the Gambia.
The 2 weeks training was funded by the European Union under the GCCA+ and it seeks to benefit coastal communities and help them to adapt to impacts of climate change through institution strengthening, knowledge management, and demonstrated implementation of the Nation Decree of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) approach, and national and local level.
The main objective of the weeks training is to build capacity at DWR and other implementing partners at national level for improve climate change scenario development and management tailored to best practices in adaptation strategy for the country. And this particular capacity building initiative underpins the institutional climate change modeling element of component 2 of the GCCA+ project.
Abdoulie Bojang, Senior Program Officer Environmental Information System Program (NEA), said human beings are all affected by climate change. “We are seeing flooding. We have seen drought and some of the anthropogenic activities that are induced by human beings. So, we have seen industrialization whereby we have this green emission of greenhouse gasses increasing, and we have seen farming practices. We have seen urbanization on the coastline of the Gambia. So, all these things are exacerbating the effect of climate change in the Gambia,” he explained.
He said because of these reasons he found this training very useful because it has helped him to know some tools and to also understand the dynamics of temperature on the coastline of the Gambia.
He also thanked the representatives of the EU for sponsoring this program because the GCCA project is feasible. While thanking the trainer for taking them through all the models, “it has really helped us because as researchers, we use many models in terms of data analysis, and also it has improved our data acquisition techniques. We are able to acquire data from different different platforms, which is also very important and it has really impacted our way on which positively on which we are going to conduct research”.
Qiuseppe Daconto, GCCA+ Project Director, encouraged participants not to wait for the next project but to maintain an agenda of leading.
Evengeline Bienco, EU delegate Representative in the Gambia,urged the participants to keep on updating themselves for the future.
Lamin Mai Touray, Director Department of Water Resources, said training of technical staff on downscaling scenarios is very important for the fact that the climate related information they generate is crucial for decision making, economic development and saving of lives and properties. This includes developing methodology and capacity for downscaled scenarios and risk assessment corresponding with the needs of the Gambia’s coastal zone management. Therefore, this training which has enormously built the capability of technical staff will go a long way in enhancing quality and timely delivery of climate related services.
Director Touray thanked the EU for their continued support to the government of the Gambia, more particularly for funding the GCCA+ project and look forward to the extension of the GCCA+ project.
He concluded by saying that his office will continue to facilitate capacity building activities to enhance the provision of weather and climate information for increased climate resilient for the Gambian population.
