The African Climate Change Fellowship Program (ACCFP) offers experiential learning, education, research and training opportunities to African professionals, researchers and graduate students that will build their capabilities for advancing and applying knowledge for climate change adaptation in Africa.

Participating Fellows receive small grants that enable them to undertake Policy, Post- Doctoral, Doctoral or Teaching Fellowships. The Fellows visit other institutions – Host Institutions – to implement a project of their own design that enhances their understanding of climate risks, vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies, assesses current practices for designing and implementing adaptation projects and/or promotes integration of adaptation with planning, policy and decision-making.

A ‘Workshop to Assess Needs and Opportunities for the ACCFP, was held in March, 2008, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Two of the major recommendations from the workshop were to target the pilot phase of the Fellowship Program to a relatively small number of capable and committed institutions in Africa to host Fellows and to place multiple Fellows with common Host Institutions. Targeting a small number of institutions with high qualifications to host multiple Fellows is expected to increase the impacts of the Program; provide valuable opportunities for Fellows to interact with and learn from their peers; build stronger capabilities at Host Institutions to become centers of excellence for supervising and mentoring Fellows; and establish stronger and longer lasting relationships among Host Institutions, Home Institutions and the Fellowship Program. ACCFP partners invited 30 proposals from targeted Hosts following the workshop and in July 2008, on the basis of proposal review, 11 Recommended Host Institutions were selected for the inaugural round of Fellowship awards.

The workshop brought together members of scientific, public sector, development, intergovernmental and civil society organizations to inform design and implementation of the ACCFP. Seventy-six workshop participants from 30 countries, including 23 African countries, discussed adaptation capacity needs, the potential for fellowships to help meet these needs, the appropriate design of an effective fellowship program, the engagement of institutions to host fellows, the roles of host institutions, conditions for success and sustainability of the fellowship program, and challenges to be overcome. A series of white papers presenting various perspectives on these issues were circulated in English and French prior to the workshop to stimulate discussion, and simultaneous French- English translation was provided during the workshop to facilitate participation and contributions of both Francophone and Anglophone Africans.

In November 2008, following extensive review of 281 applications, 45 individuals from 18 African countries were selected as the inaugural class of ACCFP Fellows. The Fellows are identified, in the Alumni Network.

The ACCFP is jointly administered by START, the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) of the University of Dar es Salaam and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), with generous financial support from the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) Program. The CCAA is funded by IDRC Canada and UK DFID.

For more information, contact Clark Seipt, cseipt@start.org

Last Updated on December 10th, 2009