GCA to help build urban resilience in N’Djamena in partnership with World Bank
R
otterdam, the Netherlands, 31st March 2023 – The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) announced today that it is working in partnership with the World Bank to help build urban resilience in N’Djamena, the capital city of the Republic of Chad. The N’Djamena Urban Resilience Project is financed by a US$150 million International Development Association grant.
The Republic of Chad is one of the world’s most environmentally degraded countries, particularly in its western, northern and eastern provinces, where temperature increases are projected to be 1.5 times higher than in the rest of the world. The last three major flood events on record took place in 2012, 2020, and most recently 2022. These resulted in significant infrastructure damages and economic losses.
In August 2012, heavy rainfall damaged buildings in the 5th, 7th, and 8th districts, destroying critical infrastructures and an estimated 120,000 houses, and flooding 1,400,000 hectares of cultivated land. The country’s civil protection estimated that almost 20 percent of the city’s population was affected and that the event led to over US$24 million in economic losses. In 2020, the floods affected over 40,000 people, and destroyed dikes in the 7th and 9th districts. Chad also experienced high rainfall in 2022 with close to 1.4 million people affected, 80,000 houses destroyed, and 350,000 hectares of cultivated land and 20,000 cattle reported lost. Initial estimated needs for emergency recovery were at US$70 million at the end of 2022.
In addition, Chad’s development challenges are immense: from low economic productivity to long-lasting conflict. Gender inequality is a particularly critical problem with the country ranking 143 out of 153 in the Global Gender Gap Index and as the third worst country in Africa by the World Bank. This is particularly pronounced when one looks at gender-specific climate vulnerabilities.
As part of the project, GCA in close collaboration with the World Bank Team recently carried out a Climate Vulnerability Assessment to examine how women in the capital city of N’Djamena are particularly vulnerable to floods caused by heavy rainfall, the overflowing of rivers, and the breaching of dykes.
During the assessment, GCA found that there were low levels of disaster awareness and limited access to weather and disaster alerts among women in part due to low levels of literacy (22.4% for women compared to 40.7% for men). Women were also excluded from formal and informal decision-making structures due to their lack of status and position, both within the family and in society, which limits their ability to participate in community decisions at the same level as men. During floods, women also found the triple responsibility of caring for their children, running households, and augmenting household incomes even more challenging.
Building on these findings and recommendations, the following measures to reduce the vulnerability of women in N’Djamena to climate-change impacts have been included in the project design:
- Establish community-level preparedness and response committees in each district which include women in leadership positions to ensure their needs and concerns are reflected in decisions made around early warning and disaster response. By providing training to help women raise their voices, this initiative will enable them to better protect themselves in the event of flooding as well as strengthen their capacity to monitor local conditions and alerts as well as receive, analyze and act on warnings.
- Establish a city-wide early warning system and promote a gender-sensitive communication and citizen engagement strategy for disaster preparedness through awareness campaigns translated into traditional tribal dialects training, the use of local media outlets such as the radio program Women’s House in N’Djamena, and targeted training to the local population.
- Finance community-led local initiatives to generate local job opportunities where women will be prioritized in the selection process. This will include activities traditionally handled by women such as local urban agriculture, agro-foresty and greening initiatives, and neighborhood cleaning and awareness campaigns.
In addition, GCA will also work with the World Bank to carry out an in-depth assessment to inform the prioritization of green, grey and hybrid options for flood risk reduction (including nature-based solutions and urban agriculture). The assessment will consider the solution’s cost and risk-reducing potential as well as its ability to fulfill other development objectives, such as increased water supply, improved environmental and soil conditions and reduced heat island effect.
GCA will also provide support for the development of a local community engagement strategy that builds on the findings of vulnerability and community mapping exercises. Communication and awareness-raising campaigns are also planned under the project.
Results will be assessed through indicators such as the number of women in leadership positions and the number of labor days created as a result of the interventions.
This work is part of the GCA’s City Adaptation Accelerator which is part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP). The AAAP aims to mobilize a total of up to US$25 billion for climate adaptation between 2020 and 2025.
