Ethiopia is heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture, and its geographical location and topography in combination with low adaptive capacity entail a high vulnerability to adverse impacts of climate change. Regional projections of climate models do not only predict a substantial rise in mean temperatures over the twenty-first century but also an increase in rainfall variability with a rising frequency of both extreme flooding and droughts due to global warming.
As part of a new World Bank programme to provide analytical support for the mainstreaming of climate change in development policy, this pilot project develops a dynamic multisectoral modeling framework for climate change impact and adaptation policy assessment. In the pilot phase the model is calibrated to a disaggregated social accounting matrix for Ethiopia and incorporates regional temperature, precipitation and extreme weather event predictions from global circulation climate models as well as insights from a detailed review of empirical studies of the link between agricultural yields and climatic conditions. The approach also allows accounting for climate change impacts on morbidity and mortality.
The model is used to assess the medium-run adaptation needs of the country and to simulate the dynamic growth and poverty impacts of alternative adaptation policy strategies. In the second phase of the World Bank programme, the methodological approach developed in this pilot study will serve as a blueprint for a wider set of country studies.
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