ABSTRACT

Sahelian West Africa is a region of high year-to-year climate variability that can significantly impact on communities and livelihoods. Adaptive social protection (ASP) is being introduced in the region to support vulnerable people through enabling more effective responses to climate shocks, bridging social protection with disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The ASPIRE (Adaptive Social Protection: Information for enhanced REsilience) project aimed to provide technical support to the World Bank’s Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Programme through demonstrating the use of climate forecasts in ASP and promoting dialogue between climate and social protection stakeholders. Here we discuss lessons learned in the project, highlighting challenges and opportunities for including climate forecasts in early warning systems to inform ASP. We provide recommendations to help achieve ASP systems designed to use climate forecasts, arguing that tailored seasonal forecast products have potential in some countries to improve the lead time of interventions to address climate-induced disasters. Critical to this is continued investment in underpinning science and capacity building of climate and social protection stakeholders, as well as strengthened dialogue between actors to co-develop climate forecasts that provide actionable information.

摘要

萨赫勒西非地区是一个年复一年气候变率高的地区，会对社区和生计产生重大影响。该地区正在引入适应性社会保护 (ASP)，通过更有效地应对气候冲击、将社会保护与减少灾害风险和适应气候变化联系起来，为弱势群体提供支持。ASPIRE（适应性社会保护：增强复原力的信息）项目旨在通过展示 ASP 中气候预测的使用以及促进气候和社会保护利益相关者之间的对话，为世界银行的萨赫勒适应性社会保护计划提供技术支持。在这里，我们讨论从项目中汲取的教训，重点介绍将气候预测纳入预警系统以为ASP带来的挑战和机遇。我们提供建议以帮助实现旨在使用气候预测的 ASP 系统，认为定制的季节性预测产品在某些国家具有改善应对气候引起的灾害的干预措施的准备时间的潜力。对此至关重要的是继续投资于支持气候和社会保护利益相关者的科学和能力建设，以及加强参与者之间的对话以共同开发提供可操作信息的气候预测。