Cameroon: Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk Considerations into Development Planning

Context and objectives 

The government of Cameroon has prioritized the mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and climate change adaptation into its development planning. 

The project contributed to increased climate and disaster resilience in several cities by integrating urban resilience concepts into spatial development and strengthening the capacity of development sectors to integrate climate and disaster resilience into strategic planning.  

Main Activities and results

The approach taken throughout project implementation included a focus on urban settings and on improving expertise in producing and analyzing climate and disaster risk data. This approach greatly facilitated the integration of climate and disaster risk data into the decision-making process for development planning. This included the development of several analytical tools, such as a flood risk Atlas and 18 flood risk maps for several neighborhoods in Cameroon’s capital city Yaoundé. Flood risk layers were uploaded to a special viewing interface on an online mapping platform for interactive data management.  In addition, a report with concrete policy recommendations on DRM integration in Cameroonian urban development was developed for the benefit of the government. 

This project also resulted in significant advancements in capacity building of government officials and academic researchers. Final activities included three workshops in Yaoundé in October and November 2020 that trained 55 participants including 16 women on hydrological modelling and strengthened the policy dialogue on DRM and urban development. These workshops garnered significant interest from participants, and 44 researchers and students were also trained in key skills such as land-use mapping, hydrological modelling, and geological data collection. The results of these modelling exercises have been disseminated at many important venues such as the 2020 General Assembly of the International Association of Francophone Mayors in Tunis, during sessions of the Symposium of the National Order for Civil Engineers of Cameroon, and for the municipality of Ngaoundéré, a city in the north of Cameroon. 

In addition, government staff participated in the Understanding Risk Conference West and Central Africa in Abidjan in November 2019 to share the experience in Cameroon and lessons learnt in workshop on “Communicating and modeling climate change consequences on economic development” and the technical session “Data and People – two essential links to integrate resilience into macroeconomic and local planning – the Cameroon experience”. The sessions were received with a lot of interest from the international participants in Abidjan. 

Useful link

The Guide to Integrate Climate and Disaster Risks into Development Planning is available (in French) here.