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2. Institutionalisation of climate change issues: Climate change has an effect at all levels of socio-economic development. As a cross-cutting issue, all sectors, in particular MTEA and MET, need to develop capacity to:
(a) Manage and coordinate undertaking of climate change interventions, which involves collecting evidence to inform policy and interventions formulation, vulnerability and adaptation assessments, and mitigation analysis.
(b) Translate adaptation and mitigation targets into policies.
(c) Enhance the process to derive benefits from provisions of the Conventions and Kyoto Protocol on carbon markets.
3. Studies on the Effects of Environmental Degradation and Climate Change: Support the country’s capacity for environmental impact assessment (EIA) and the enforcement of regulations that prevent human activities that degrade the environment in an unsustainable manner.
4. Strengthening disaster response system and risk management: Integrating climate risk management into the implementation of national policies and programmes is imperative. This should be aimed at developing the resilience capacity and putting in place the appropriate infrastructure for an integrated, coordinated and comprehensive response to cyclical disaster such as drought, wind/hailstorm and disease out breaks.
5. Advocacy and awareness: This should be aimed at promoting informed and inclusive national dialogue around water needs, agricultural practices, and vulnerability to climate change. In addition, it should create political will to integrate response options into fiscal and regulatory policies and to adjust investments to manage climate change effectively particularly with respect to agricultural water.
News:
1. Development of Policies: Framework that charts a pathway consistent with the international instruments is absent. The framework would promote the adoption of key policies and legal commitments on enacting of effective mitigation strategies to reduce carbon emissions and adopt a shift in energy policy, and provide an enabling environment for adaptation mechanisms.
 Ensure Environmental Stability
Overview
The emerging threat to Swaziland’s sustainable economic growth is climate change with adverse impacts already being observed on the environment, human health, food security, economic activity, and physical infrastructure. Swaziland, in particular may observe a decrease in perennial surface drainage, which will have major impacts on river flow and soil-water content, with potentially serious socio-economic impacts in rural areas. Limitations are attributed to the disabling environment as there is no national framework presently to address climate change. Further constraints lie with the limited institutional capacities to address impacts and community vulnerability.
Swaziland signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)
in 1992 and ratified the Convention in 1996. While the phenomenon is implicitly confined under the parameters of the environment sustainability in the national frameworks, there are no policies in place to address or integrate climate change. In signing the convention, the country assumed commitment to undertake national communications,
which at present is the main national document addressing country specific climate change issues.
The Government, through the national development frameworks, namely Constitution Act, 2005, NDS (1997-2022), and the ‘Vision 2022’ as well as the PRSAP call for environmental sustainability. A central plank in the PRSAP is to increase agricultural productivity and production. The PRSAP further recognizes that climate and weather patterns are erratic, but does not explicitly acknowledge climate change risks. Sector policies are ‘silent’ on climate change. These include those for energy, agriculture and forestry, health transport as well as the National Food Security Policy (2007), the National Water Act (2003) and its draft National Water Policy. The comprehensive Agriculture Sector Policy (2007) highlights that adaptation strategies will be necessary to enhance food security, agricultural production and livelihoods. However, the Policy lacks the detail on what to do.
The First National Communication (FNC), 2002 highlights (a) the socio-economic context under which interventions to address climate change can be made; (b) the inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of GHG; (c) assesses the vulnerability, in particular the water and agriculture sectors; and (d) the interventions that must be put in place to address the Conventions concerns based on the identified needs of the country.
Policies and integration of the climate change issues in development strategies
While climate change and associated impacts are observed in the country through the prolonged drought spells, decrease in water resources, the Government of Swaziland’s MDG (2007) observes that there is no framework that addresses the impact of climate change. Sector policies such as the Comprehensive Agriculture Sector Policy (2007) and the National Food Security Policy (2007) highlight that an adaptation strategy will be necessary to enhance food security, agricultural production and livelihoods, but there are no programmes and action plans to that effect.
FNC notes the importance of ensuring that sector plans are climate change-responsive, for example, in the water sector. Water has been acknowledged as the driver to sustained socio-economic development. There is recognised need to develop robust water resource systems and techniques to incorporate climate change into long-term planning as well as in on-going water and land management programmes.
Limited Institutionalization of Climate Change Issues
The FNC process provides a foundation for supporting the development of a long-term climate change adaptation policy mainstreaming. Climate change issues have over the years been anedoctally confined in the department of meteriology (MET) under the Ministry of Tourism and Environment affairs (MTEA). As of 2009, MTEA has been mandated to deal with climate change issues. The ‘science’ involved in the generation of evidence to inform policy making has been limited to the national communications. There is no systematic work undertaken to collect data to inform interventions that will address the impacts of climate change. National and sectoral investments have not integrated climate change in their interventions. Nor have they mainstreamed gender and vulnerability in their interventions. The country has also not taken advantage of the opportunities being offered under the Kyoto Protocol that allow industrilised countries to invest in projects/programmes that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to expensive reduction in their own countries.
Increased water insecurity
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report indicates that, by 2050, temperatures and rainfall over Southern Africa will be 2 - 4°C higher and 10 - 20 percent lower than the 1961-90 baseline, respectively. The fourth assessment report shows that the long-term trend 1900 – 2005 indicates longer dry seasons and more uncertain rainfall over Southern Africa. Changes in flow regimes of shared water resources due to climate change will also affect water availability for energy, agricultural production and domestic use in the country. The FNC predicts a fall in total annual rainfall, and a change in the distribution of rainfall: summers becoming wetter (leading to flooding) and winters becoming dryer (leading to prolonged droughts).
Reduced Agricultural Productivity
Agricultural production and related employment underpins the national economy. The PRSAP, the National Food Security Act (2007) and the Water Act (2003) are silent on climate change, even though they include ambitious targets to increase agricultural productivity and production and for agricultural water development. Most of the surface water is used for irrigation which is making the economy vulnerable to climate change. Research shows that there could be a fall of 30-60 percent in crop yields in some areas because subsistence agriculture (on which 70 percent of the Swazi population depends) is mostly rain-fed. Most water resources are allocated to the production of cash crops that may become ill-suited to changing rainfall conditions in Swaziland, e.g. sugar cane. Efforts to ensure crop diversification over the years have been futile due to challenges of translating good policies to practice. There is also relatively large-scale afforestation industry for eucalyptus – a tree ill-suited to drier conditions. Furthermore, climate change-induced disasters such as droughts, floods, wild fires,
windstorm, and hailstorms are already experience in Swaziland disasters and, collectively, have far-reaching consequences for the agriculture sector.
Only 50 percent of Swazi rural population (representing about 79 percent of the population) has access to water. This means that collecting and storing water is a major undertaking for rural people, in particular women, which detracts people from engaging in other productive activity.
Increased Health Risk
The changing weather and local climatic conditions are creating an environment conducive to the breeding of vectors that transmit killer disease such as Malaria. The high AIDS prevalence has created a significant population segment, which, with compromised immunity, has augmented the impacts of climate change-induced epidemics. Chronic drought in the country is the main climate change-induced disaster contributing to the high stunting levels.
Vulnerability and resilience
When disasters strike, critical is the ability of communities to restore their livelihoods and rebuild their assets. 69 percent of the Swazi people live below the poverty line which compromises their ability to cope with such disasters. While the poverty trap is at the forefront, appropriate national policies, human and institutional capacities, and appropriate infrastructure are critical in ensuring resilience of the vulnerable groups. UNDP supported the development of the national disaster management Act 2006 and the Risk Reduction National Action Plan (NAP) that have provided for the development of draft sector contingency plans that aim to build the necessary capacities in planning for disasters, which includes the establishment of infrastructure at grassroots level. The implementation of the plans, however, has not born fruits.
Inadequate adaptation and mitigation strategies
National initiatives to address climate change can be done through adaptation and mitigation strategies. These approaches have not been effectively implemented. Nevertheless, there is an effort in the water sector through the integrated water resource management (IWRM) to cater for this. The Komati Downstream Development Project (KDDP) and the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project (LUSIP) both promote and enhance private sector development through the active participation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in agricultural development. The capacity built in the projects in KDDP and LUSIP is overlaid on IWRM.
Taking into account the current situation, including the outstanding challenges, the following offer opportunities for cooperation in the area of Environment.
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