ARUA-CD: Building African Capacity for Climate and Development Challenges

非洲开发计划署气候与发展卓越中心（ARUA- cd）应对三项挑战，即实现公平、适应现有和预期的气候风险和影响、低碳排放的发展，从而减少非洲对全球变暖的贡献。从本质上讲，ARUA-CD是对非洲大陆气候和发展挑战以及解决这些挑战所需的迫切知识和能力需求的战略性、合作性泛非响应。在整个非洲，研究气候变化与发展之间复杂相互关系的专业人士和研究人员群体相对较少。需要更多的专业知识：(i)了解威胁非洲大陆当前和未来福祉的气候和发展挑战；（ii）与社会共同创造关于如何应对这些新风险和挑战的知识；（iii）共同设计、评估和维持与可持续发展目标相关的特定背景和文化适宜的创新和解决方案。由非洲主导、跨地方、国家和跨国的跨学科研究可以帮助实现这一目标，为有效的气候变化政策、战略和行动提供必要的证据和动力，支持社会创新和适应新的不确定的未来。非洲区域合作联盟由三个核心伙伴组成；开普敦大学（非洲气候与发展倡议是CoE秘书处和南部非洲区域中心）、加纳大学（环境与卫生研究所是西非区域中心）和内罗毕大学（气候变化与适应研究所是东非区域中心）。这些CoE成员中的每一个都拥有广泛的现有能力、本地和国际网络以及气候变化和发展方面的研究和学生教学经验，这为协同和互动提供了机会，并奠定了基础。每个区域中心都按照“中心和辐条”模式与该地区的其他ARUA和非ARUA大学联系，中心作为一个整体将这些团体聚集在一个泛非实践社区中。通过这一点，我们设想亚发会成为非洲应对气候变化和发展挑战的变革解决方案的领导者和灵感来源。本提案所述的活动都有助于非洲发展和合作论坛的核心重点，即建设非洲应对气候和发展挑战的能力。通过这些活动的成功实施，该项目旨在建设非洲进行可加强决策的比较性、参与性和变革性研究的能力；政策流程和影响科学，实现公平和气候适应未来的目标。这些活动旨在支持有能力、有技能的非洲学者和专业人士面对现状，寻求最先进的解决方案，以应对非洲气候变化带来的复杂挑战。在加强培训和能力建设方面，我们希望扩大和加强非洲在地区和全球平台上的声音。该计划的成功实施需要努力与专家、决策者、从业者和目标明确的社区建立开放和建设性的伙伴关系，以确定研究差距、共同设计项目、共同创造知识并应用适合具体情况的解决方案。这些活动的最终目标是在非洲各地建立一个由致力于气候变化问题和解决方案的高等教育机构和其他合作伙伴组成的强大和包容的网络。

The ARUA Centre of Excellence in Climate and Development (ARUA-CD) tackles the triple challenge of enabling development that is equitable, resilient to existing and expected climate risks and impacts, and is low in carbon emissions such that African contributions to global warming is reduced. Essentially, ARUA-CD is a strategic, collaborative pan-African response to the climate and development challenges of the continent and the urgent knowledge and capacity needs required to address these. The community of professionals and researchers working on the complex interrelationships between climate change and development is relatively small throughout Africa. Greater expertise is needed to: (i) understand the climate and development challenges threatening the continent's current and future well-being; (ii) co-produce knowledge with society on how to respond to these new risks and challenges, and (iii) co-design, evaluate and sustain context-specific and culturally appropriate innovations and solutions that cut across the SDGs. African-led, engaged transdisciplinary research that spans local, national and transnational scales can help do this by providing the evidence and impetus required for effective climate change policies, strategies and actions that support societal innovation and adaptation to a new and uncertain future.The ARUA-CD consists of three core partners; the University of Cape Town (the African Climate and Development Initiative is the CoE Secretariat and Southern African regional hub), the University of Ghana (the Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies is the West African regional hub, and the University of Nairobi (the Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation is the East African regional hub). Each of these CoE members have extensive existing capacity, local and international networks and research and student teaching experience in climate change and development, which provides opportunities for synergy and interaction and a foundation on which to build. Each of the regional hubs reach out to other ARUA and non-ARUA universities in their region following a 'hub and spoke' model, with the Centre as a whole bringing these groups together in a pan-African community of practice. Through this, we envisage the ARUA-CD as a leader and source of inspiration for transformative solutions to the challenges of climate change and development in Africa. The activities described in this proposal all contribute to the core focus of the ARUA-CD, that is, building African capacity for climate and development challenges. Through successful implementation of these activities, this project aims to build capacity in Africa for comparative, engaged and transformative research that enhances decision-making; policy processes and science for impact, towards the goal of an equitable and climate resilient future. These activities build towards supporting capable and skilled African scholars and professionals in confronting the status quo and pursuing state-of-the-art solutions to the complex challenges posed by climate change in Africa. In the vision of improved training and capacity building, we hope to amplify and strengthen African voices in both regional and global platforms. The successful execution of this programme requires efforts in developing open and constructive partnerships with experts, decision-makers, practitioners and with well-targeted communities in order to identify research gaps, co-design projects, co-create knowledge and apply context-appropriate solutions. The activities are designed with the end goal of building a robust and inclusive network of higher education institutions and other partners working on climate change problems and solutions across Africa.