The Periperi U secretariat, situated in Stellenbosch University (SU) International's Centre for Collaboration in Africa, hosted its first workshop under the Climate Adaptation Research Programme (CARP) at Ardhi University in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The aim of the event, held from 30 October to 2 November 2023, was to help establish the CARP community, which offers early-career and established African professionals working in the climate adaptation field a platform to network, engage and collaborate.
Among the 70 participants were Tanzanian government officials, underscoring the importance of engagement between risk reduction practitioners and policymakers to address the continent's climate adaptation challenges.
Cross-border collaboration
CARP is run in partnership with the Humanitarian Assistance Technical Support (HATS) project at the University of Arizona and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its intention is to support applied climate adaptation research in Africa, with a particular focus on the implications for disaster risk reduction policies and strategies.
Apart from Tanzania, countries represented at the workshop included South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Morocco, Rwanda and the United States. Participants included emerging scholars from the 33 CARP research projects taking place across ten African countries. The programme featured several discussion sessions, group activities, research poster presentations as well as field excursions to project sites focused on reducing flooding vulnerability and risk in Dar es Salaam.
CARP expansion plans formalised
The event also saw the Periperi U secretariat sign an agreement with the University of Arizona to expand CARP up to 2028. The expanded initiative, CARP-PLUS, with its additional budget of $2,05 million will provide more funding for vital climate change and disaster risk research, travel to major strategic events, and sponsorship to attend training across the continent.
The next CARP workshop will be held in 2024 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
