Addis Ababa — The 4th edition of the Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IV) will be held in Marrakech, Morocco from October 8 to 10 on the theme: "Africa can feed Africa now: translating climate knowledge into action"
The overall objective of the conference is to provide a platform to discuss how Africa can draw on climate knowledge to transform agricultural production systems in order to ensure food self-sufficiency and improve the socio-economic well-being of its people in a sustainable manner.
Held annually under the auspices of "Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa)", a consortium of three Pan-African institutions, including the African Union Commission (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), the conference will be a platform to influence policy in the continent.
CCDA is a unique forum where stakeholders meet to discuss the relationship between climate change and development, with Africa as the focus. This year's theme is chosen in recognition of 2014 as the year of agriculture.
During the proceedings of this conference, held for the first time away from the premises of the secretariat at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, the emphasis will be on the opportunities offered by climate knowledge to change agricultural production systems in order to ensure that Africa can feed itself sustainably.
The CCDA-III held in October 2013 in Addis Ababa under the theme "Africa on the rise: can the opportunities from climate change spring the continent to transformative development " highlighted the urgent need to incorporate climate change into the planning, programming and implementation of policies.
Pursuant to this trend, the CCDA-IV Conference will focus on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable groups and will also incorporate a strong participation of civil society groups with a view to perceiving the realities, opportunities and challenges at the grassroots level on which policymakers and researchers expected at the conference will concentrate their efforts in developing relevant interventions. Among other targeted vulnerable groups are farmers, women and the youth.
