Course report: Climate change adaptation in agriculture and natural resource management - Integrating climate change in policy making and programming for sustainable development

At the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) in the Netherlands, Wageningen UR1 has initiated a support programme for climate change adaptation in Eastern Africa in 2008. In partnership with ASARECA2, IUCN – EARO3 and RUFORUM4 a scoping workshop and follow-up were organised. The focus was on capacities needed to better integrated climate change adaptation responses into agricultural, rural development and natural resources policy processes. The initiative led, among others, to the development of a new training course in 2009, implemented by the partnership, in collaboration with HoA-REC5 at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. The regional training on Climate Change Adaptation in agriculture and NRM took place from 15 to 26 June 2009 in Addis Ababa. It was attended by 26 participants from Ethiopia (20), Uganda (3), Kenya (2) and Tanzania (1). Participants were drawn from universities, agricultural research institutes, non-governmental organisations and government departments. The course was coordinated and facilitated by a team from HoA-REC and Wageningen UR, complemented by presenters and lecturers from various universities and institutes, such as Prof. Richard Odingo (University of Nairobi), Dr. Jan Verhagen (Wageningen UR), Dr. Gebru Jember (National Meteorological Agency, Ethiopia), and Dr. Lulseged Tamene (Addis Ababa University).