Yaounde — Convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), a panel of about 30 experts will meet from 2 - 4 December 2015 in Douala, Cameroon, to build their capacity to help Central African States tackle climate change challenges to agricultural production by means of proactive policies and approaches.

Organised under the theme "mainstreaming climate change concerns into agricultural policies in Central Africa," the seminar will most particularly bring together experts from central government services responsible for agricultural policies in the countries of the sub-region, parliamentarians, representatives of the CEMAC Commission, the Secretariat General of ECCAS, COMIFAC, CEBEVIRHA, FAO, and ACMAD.

The workshop is organised within a context marked by the fact that though agriculture accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the Gross National Product of countries of the sub-region, it remains highly vulnerable to climate change, notably irregular and unpredictable rainfall, a resurgence of storms and prolonged droughts, and the emergence of pests and diseases that attack crops. Such phenomena cause a decline in the production of foodstuffs such as sorghum, maize, millet, yam, plantain, vegetables, groundnuts, etc.

Paris Climate Agreement Should Aim to Save Lives - Carlos Lopes

The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Carlos Lopes, has said that unless climate negotiators and governments begin to put faces and people behind the statistics on impacts of climate change in Africa, "the sense of urgency with which the upcoming negotiation must be approached from a humanistic perspective would be lost."

On the strength of the foregoing, it is important to ensure that all climate change-related concerns are sufficiently taken into account in agricultural policies at the national and subregional levels in a more proactive manner than in the past so as to comply with objective 13 of the New Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that aims to ''take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts''.

The main expected outcomes of the workshop are as follows:

• agricultural sector risks related to climate and its changes in Central Africa are better understood by participants;
• the capacities of participants to determine and implement more appropriate adaptation measures are strengthened;
• Adaptation measures are increasingly consistent with sustainable agricultural development measures in Central Africa;
• Agricultural policies in ECCAS members States progressively mainstream climate risks;
• Cooperation is strengthened between Central African countries to achieve better management by agricultural sector players of climate change related risks.