CoM SSA cities and partners from 8 countries receive intensive online training on SEACAP development during COVID-19 crisis

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, CoMSSA partners pursue their efforts towards sustainable urban planning through appropriate capacity building.

Representatives from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Togo and Uganda and  attended online trainings aiming to develop their capacities on the topics of climate adaptation, climate mitigation, energy access, monitoring, and reporting.

During these past months, supported cities expressed their specific needs in terms of Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plan (SEACAP) development and implementation. As a first activity, CoM SSA, together with the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC), provided four online trainings to more than 100 participants from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Togo and Uganda. The cities’ representatives and partners now have the basic knowledge and tools that will allow them to develop comprehensive, realistic, and dynamic action plans.

The COVID-19 crisis is badly affecting a number of field activities and delaying many projects. The CoM SSA initiative is not spared. Nevertheless, CoM SSA cities showed their willingness to pursue their efforts in fighting climate change despite the economic, social, and logistical difficulties they currently face.

In July 2020, more than a hundred of representatives from Bobo Dioulasso (Burkina Faso), Garoua (Cameroun), Kisumu and Nakuru (Kenya), Bamako and Segou (Mali), Nouakchott (Mauritania), Dakar and Pikine (Senegal), Sokodé and Kpalimé (Togo), and Kampala (Uganda) attended the online trainings specially designed and customized by the JRC.

In order to address Sub-Saharan cities’ specific challenges, the training described the different steps of the SEACAP guidelines, as published by the JRC in November 2018 and within the framework of the CoM SSA program. The participants were provided with in-depth knowledge of the concepts of climate adaptation, climate mitigation, and sustainable energy access, as well as hands-on practice on reporting tools to measure the progress and impact of their upcoming climate-energy actions.

For achieving long term sustainable urban development, it is crucial to have well-informed personnel in the cities that, with the support and technical assistance of CoM SSA, could take the lead of developing, implementing, and monitoring comprehensive, realistic, integrated, and dynamic action plans.

  Photo caption: Some of the participants of the JRC training on SEACAP methodology and tools, July 2020

The level of attendance, as well as the quality of the questions and exchanges, leave no doubt about the capacity of the participants, who will apply the acquired knowledge in the coming months.