NDC Support Centre: supporting African countries in setting up and maintaining climate initiatives
In close collaboration with the African Energy Commission (AFREC) and CO2logic, VITO has been building a knowledge centre since the beginning of 2021. That centre is meant to offer support to African countries by helping them collect important energy information and set realistic climate goals for the future.
Vulnerable to climate change
The African continent is very vulnerable when it comes to climate change. Both agriculture and food security, water supplies and general livelihoods are under immense pressure because of that.
Therefore, we created the NDC Support Center in close collaboration with AFREC. The NDC Support Center wants to help African countries tackle those challenges. It focuses on the so-called NDCs: nationally determined contributions. NDCs are national climate plans which stipulate the goals, policy plans and measures governments would like to implement in response to climate change. These contributions are connected to the required global climate actions and reflect the determination of each nation to take measures into its own hands.
The Paris Agreement orders each country to set up, publish and live by NDCs, so the benchmarks for each country will be realised.
Better energy stats and models
To set up clear NDCs, a country needs accurate energy stats and modelling options. That happens to be a sore point for many African countries.
That’s why we set up our trial project with Morocco, Uganda and Malawi in 2021. With a custom approach, we tried to optimise the quality and accuracy of their energy stats, developed options to draft climate models and improved their policy processes for NDC reporting.
We also supported them in determining long-term strategies to reduce carbon emissions (LT-LEDS).
A new chapter for this project
The first part of our trial project ran from 2021 until 2024 and was a huge success. So, we are starting a new chapter of the NDC Support Center to expand our support to multiple African countries under the watchful eye of the African Union Commission (AUC).
Using our experience from the early stages of this project, we will keep tackling the unique challenges and various levels of data maturity in African nations.
The final goal of the NDC Support Center is to offer African countries a greater capacity to prepare for climate actions in collaboration with the UNFCCC.
Funding
This project was funded by the Flemish Government.
