Sustainable mountain development in East Africa in a changing climate

Conclusion

East Africa provides a good case on which the framework for an Africa Mountain Agenda can be developed. East Africa has some of Africa’s most prominent mountains, and also home to large mountain communities. Over the years, several assessments have been conducted on Africa’s mountain regions, including the Africa Mountain Atlas, which has a chapter on East Africa. As such, the current state and trends of mountain ecosystems is generally known. Several political pronouncements have also been made on mountain regions, including by the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment at its 15th session. In this report, an East Africa mountain agenda is proposed, and will benchmark an Africa-wide mountain agenda. The proposed East Africa mountain agenda provides priority areas of action following the identification of gaps in on-going efforts to protect mountain ecosystems and to achieve sustainable development of mountain regions. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, Africa’s Agenda 2063 and various on-going programme in the region, the proposed timeframe for East Africa’s mountain agenda is 15 years, from 2015–2030. A total of 12 priority areas of action are identified and proposed, and their objectives and activities provided. The priority areas are comparable with developmental plans for other mountain regions of the world. Therefore, East Africa’s mountain agenda will provide useful inputs into the global mountain agenda should this come into being.

Bigo Bog at Mount Rwenzori, Uganda

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