Project Description

Project Background:

Benin faces significant climate change challenges that threaten its development and the well-being of its population. The country is experiencing increasing climate variability, with irregular rainfall patterns leading to droughts, shifting agricultural seasons, coastal erosion due to rising sea levels, and intensified extreme weather events such as floods and heatwaves. These climate threats impact key sectors such as agriculture, water resources, health, forestry, energy, infrastructure, and tourism. According to Benin’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP), urgent measures are required to strengthen local resilience and ensure effective climate adaptation planning. [1]

Access to reliable and localized climate information is crucial for informed decision-making on climate change adaptation. However, in Benin, data availability and accessibility remain a major challenge, particularly at the local level. Existing climate and environmental data are fragmented across multiple institutions, often inaccessible to municipalities that require them for risk assessments and adaptation planning. The lack of a standardized methodology for climate risk evaluations further complicates efforts to coordinate adaptation actions at the local level.

Recognizing the need to bridge these data gaps, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), through its Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL), has commissioned a feasibility study for the establishment of the Local Information System for Adaptation (LISA) in Benin. [2] LISA is envisioned as an integrated and evolutive online platform that consolidates climate data and provides simple data visualization and analysis tools, making data accessible to local governments and stakeholders to support risk-informed decision-making.

The feasibility study leveraged ICEM’s extensive experience in climate information systems, including the successful implementation of a similar platform in Battambang, Cambodia. [3] The study evaluated how LISA can serve as a centralized data hub, supporting local adaptation planning by:

• Enhancing access to climate risk data: Integrating and harmonizing available datasets from various institutions to provide municipalities with tailored climate risk assessments.
• Strengthening local adaptation planning capacity: Providing tools for climate vulnerability assessments, adaptation tracking, and decision-making support.
• Facilitating policy integration: Ensuring that local adaptation actions align with national climate commitments, including Benin’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Promoting inter-institutional coordination: Establishing a collaborative framework between national agencies, municipalities, and development partners to improve data sharing and governance.

The feasibility study identifies key challenges, including limited technical capacity at the municipal level, interoperability issues with existing platforms, and financial constraints for long-term platform sustainability. To ensure the successful deployment of LISA, the study recommends:

1. A staged implementation approach, beginning with the establishment of a risk data hub (Phase 1), followed by the integration of interactive visualization and risk analysis tools (Phase 2), and eventually evolving into a full-fledged climate risk planning system (Phase 3).
2. Capacity building and training programs for municipal authorities, technical users and platform administrators to enhance data literacy and climate risk assessment capabilities.
3. Pilot climate risk and vulnerability assessments in selected municipalities to populate the risk data hub with relevant localized information and demonstrate its usefulness, fostering LISA’s adoption while introducing a standard method that can be replicated in the future.
4. Integration with national and international reporting systems, such as the ongoing Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system under development for NDC tracking.

With climate change impacts intensifying, LISA will be a critical tool in empowering local governments in Benin to proactively plan and implement effective adaptation strategies. By leveraging lessons learned from successful implementations in other countries and ensuring strong institutional support, LISA has the potential to transform climate adaptation planning in Benin, ultimately contributing to more resilient and sustainable communities.

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References:

[1] Benin National Adaptation Plan (NAP), 2023

[2] FNEC (2023).  Benin Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility – LoCAL. Funding proposal GFC.

[3] ICEM (2023). Climate risk assessment of Battambang municipality. Prepared for UN-CTCN as part of the project Climate Risk Assessment for Subnational Adaptation and establishment of a local climate information system for climate change adaptation (LISA) in Cambodia.