Climate Change Adaptation in the Private Sector in Rwanda and Morocco

Many emerging and developing economies are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Climate change impacts such as heavy rains, heat waves, flooding or sea level rise may crucially affect their business operations. For mitigating these climate risks, companies need to adapt to climate change. Yet adaptation does only reduce negative impacts of climate change. Adaptation to climate change can also open up new business opportunities. Products consuming less water and energy or products adapted to a changing climate such as lighter fabrics for textiles will show an increasing demand that companies can tap into.

However, the private sector in many emerging and developing economies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, does usually not have sufficient capacity to effectively and efficiently adapt to climate change. Given that private sector development is not only of interest from an economic perspective but also has implications for the living conditions of the respective countries’ population, GIZ has initiated the project “Increasing the private sector’s capacity for adaptation to climate change”.

In the context of this project, adelphi implemented two baseline studies and conducted fact finding missions in Morocco and Rwanda, respectively. Additionally, adelphi implemented stakeholder workshops in the two countries. The project lasted from August to November 2014, was subdivided in four phases, and comprised the following work packages:

(1) Analysing the impact of climate change on non-agricultural sectors and the potential for adaptation in Morocco and Rwanda and developing baseline studies

(2) Conducting two fact finding missions in order to identify and contact relevant stakeholders and to verify the baseline studies

(3) Organisation and wrap-up of one stakeholder workshop in each country

(4) Accompanying tasks to guarantee a regular and structured exchange between all project partners