Burundi Urban Resilience Emergency Project

Adaptation Need

Burundi is among the most climate-vulnerable countries and among the least equipped to respond. Around 63 percent of the population lives in poverty, and three quarters are multi-dimensionally poor, facing deprivations in health, education, and living standards. A history of ethnic conflict and political violence has weakened national governance, with Burundi ranking in the bottom quarter of African countries for government effectiveness. These challenges limit the country’s ability to address the impact of climate change. In Bujumbura, situated on Lake Tanganyika and surrounded by rivers, over half the built-up area is prone to pluvial flooding, with 72 percent of the densest neighborhoods exposed to both pluvial and fluvial floods, causing an estimated $36 million in annual damages. As Bujumbura accounts for 71 percent of national urban growth and the urban population is expected to double by 2050, urgent adaptation is needed to reduce flood and erosion risks. While nature-based solutions are used informally, they remain small-scale and insufficient to meet growing needs. 

GCA’s Added Value

GCA’s is promoting nature-based soil and water management (NBSWM) investments to reduce climate risks in Bujumbura. GCA’s support identifies home-grown NBSWM practices already in use in Burundi, evaluates their cost-effectiveness through pre-feasibility analyses, and suggests how these can be adapted and replicated at a larger scale to address twin challenges of flooding and erosion. Appropriate solutions will be compiled into a Compendium of NBSWM Investments, which informs future investments by World Bank and national government. By building on existing solutions, the Compendium emphasizes context-specific measures that yield multiple co-benefits (such as income generation and food production) and are therefore more likely to be sustained over time, despite limited local institutional capacity. Separately, in Bujumbura and an adjacent municipality of Gatumba, GCA is developing risk-informed land use plans to reduce climate vulnerability, based on participatory risk mapping with communities and local government.