National Focal Point
- Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism
National Strategic Documents and Timeframe
National Institutional Arrangements
The NDC provides that the climate change adaptation framework in Botswana is guided and informed by its second National Communication to the UNFCCC, Sustainable Land Management documents, and its National Water Master Plans.
It explains that in order to ensure the climate change adaptation measures are mainstreamed into national development planning and sectoral planning, the current environmental programmes and projects strategically entail climate change adaptation.
Priorities and Needs
Botswana’s NDC highlights the country’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. As a semi-arid country, Botswana is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and places high priority on adaptation to reducing vulnerability. Extreme droughts are already common in south-western Botswana, as are high rainfall events, with risks of floods occurring in north-eastern Botswana where several large dams are located. It notes that droughts are projected to increase in frequency and severity.
The NDC describes that Botswana is already witnessing impacts of climate change with constrained agricultural production, increasing food insecurity and increasing water stress, which is projected to worsen with time. The NDC identifies Climate Smart Agriculture as a priority area for adaptation.
Current and Planned Adaptation Efforts
Botswana’s NDC sets out a number of adaptation actions that are currently being implemented by the government nationally to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change:
Water Sector:
- Construction of pipelines and connection to existing ones to transmit water to demand centres
- Reduce water loss during transmission by investing in telemetric monitoring systems
- Enhance conjunctive groundwater-surface water use
Agriculture
- Improve genetic characteristics of the livestock breed
- Improve livestock diet through supplementary feeding
- Switch to drought resistant, high temperature tolerant, short maturity crops
Health
- Public education and malaria campaigns
- Malaria strategy
- Control of Diarrhoeal Diseases
Synergies with Disaster Risk Reduction Efforts
To reduce the loss and damage resulting from droughts (common in south-western Botswana) and floods (most likely in north-eastern Botswana), Botswana’s adaptation actions include improvement of the transmission of water to demand centres; improving the agriculture sector’s resistance to drought; and addressing diseases for which transmission may be increased by floods.
Requirements for Additional Planning, Financial and Technical Capacities
Botswana’s NDC describes that its Climate Change Policy will include identification of technologies, a plan for knowledge management capacity development, education and public awareness and a financial mechanism to ensure that the policy is implementable.
It notes that achieving the targets set out in the NDC will be a function of resource availability and appropriate legal frameworks.
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