Integrating Flood and Drought Management and Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation in the Volta Basin (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Togo)

The geographic setting of the Volta Basin, covering an area of about 400,000 km2 and extending from semi-arid to sub-humid areas, is highly vulnerable to meteorological and hydrological events. Over the last 20 years, almost two million people have been affected by floods in the Volta basin. Key affected stakeholders are mainly people working in the agricultural sector as around 68% of the population in the basin is largely dependent on agriculture.

The main objective of the project is to assist the six countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Togo) in the implementation of coordinated and joint measures to improve their existing management plans at regional, national and local level and to build on the lessons learned from the past and current projects related to disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. As droughts and floods are a common feature in the Volta basin region, integrated water resources management, risk maps and development of early warning systems must be implemented to increase resilience to floods and droughts to ensure socio-economic sustainable development. Equilibrated management of the water resources will be sought to make better use of the water surplus during floods to be stored in view of drought events. Furthermore, at local scale, agricultural production will be tailored to these challenges with provision of knowledge and early warnings that will enable farmers to adapt their production methods.

The three specific objectives of the project are to:

1. Develop capacity and established frameworks at the local, national and regional levels to ensure risk informed decision-making;
2. Develop concrete adaptation and environmentally friendly actions with an integrated approach;
3. Strengthening policy and institutional capacity for integrated flood and drought management at the local, national and trans-boundary levels.

Project Documents