By Kemo Kanyi
The Gambia Red Cross Society, on Friday, launched a groundbreaking initiative to address urgent challenges posed by climate change in The Gambia.
The project entitled “Scaling up Locally-led Adaptation and Transforming Humanitarian Response to Climate Change” to the tune of D34,000,000.00 was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAI(D)
The transformative project aims to empower vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change through locally-led, integrated, and multi-sectoral approaches. The project is designed to ensure long-term benefits by fostering community ownership and promoting sustainable practice.
It seeks to build sustained climate resilience at the community level and ensure transformational change across National Red Cross Crescent Societies’ institutional setups, programs, and operations, making them climate smart.
Fabakary Kalleh, president of The Gambia Red Cross Society, highlighted the significance of the project as the nation is highly climate-vulnerable.
“Climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is a present and urgent challenge that demands immediate and concerted action. As a country, Gambia faces increased vulnerability to extreme weather events and shifting climatic patterns. If it is not flooding, then it’s drought or other climate events that lead to damaging impacts. We need to act now to address some of the adaptation challenges. It is within this context that the importance of our project becomes exceedingly clear,” he stated during the launching ceremony.
He, therefore, called on the government to continue playing a pivotal role in this initiative. The government’s support is crucial in creating an enabling environment for climate adaptation and resilience. This includes enacting supportive policies, providing necessary resources, and facilitating collaborations with various stakeholders, he added.
Alex Claudon de Vernisy, head of delegation, International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), covering Cape Verde, The Gambia, Mauritania, and Senegal, expressed optimism that the project will lead to sustainable and effective adaptation to climate change at the local level, increasing long-term resilience of communities to climate shocks, in regards to an escalating climate crisis globally.
Sharon Cromer, United States Ambassador to The Gambia, said they are committed to building the capacities of Gambian communities to identify challenges as the durable solutions to tackle climate change.
“The project will promote climate smart agriculture in order to prevent soil erosion, overgrazing, deforestation and rehabilitation of green cover by planting trees and conducting awareness campaigns in communities. It will introduce draught-resistant crops and improve water management. This will increase food security,” Ambassador Cromer stated.
The five-year project is an International Federation of Red Cross’ multi-country initiative targeting some of the most climate-vulnerable regions in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas.
The project contributes to USAID’s 2022-2030 Climate Strategy goals, which aim to improve climate resilience for 500 million people and enhance local communities’ participation and leadership in climate action by 2030.
