Planning for Resilience and Sustainability in East Africa
Tetra Tech helped build the capacity of communities in East Africa to address climate change.
Tetra Tech helped the East African Community (EAC) region address three key challenges affecting regional economic and social development. The challenges included transboundary freshwater biodiversity conservation; sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene; and climate change. Because of the lack of economic diversity and inadequate institutional capacity, East African countries are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate variability and change, which can produce shocks that further impede economic and livelihood advancement.
To address these challenges, the U.S. Agency for International Development created the Planning for Resilience in East Africa through Policy, Adaptation, Research, and Economic Development (PREPARED) program to help integrate climate-resilient development planning and program implementation into the EAC, Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), and Partner States’ development agendas.
Under this program, Tetra Tech worked with the EAC to build the capacity of the EAC’s Climate Change Coordination Unit; improve the quality and availability of climate information for decision makers in the EAC region; promote climate change adaptation strategies; and help the EAC and LVBC access and manage adaptation funding. In this role, we worked extensively with national and local government officials to factor climatic uncertainty into their economic development plans and activities across all levels of decision making. We also facilitated their coordination with the private sector in executing the plans including successfully facilitating the development of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to leverage funds from the private sector to finance water resource management activities identified in integrated water resource management plans.
PREPARED’s success also depended on continuing support for the LVBC and EAC Partner States in their efforts to improve cooperation and management of transboundary freshwater ecosystems in the small towns and peri-urban areas of the Lake Victoria Basin.
Our team celebrated the achievements and lessons learned of the project with a thought leadership closeout event at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. View the webcast and summary of the event here.