SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance Delivers Capacity Building on the Economics and Finance of Climate Change Adaptation for Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Planning and Development
The Resilience and Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP) convened its fourth practitioner training course on the economics and finance of climate change adaptation in collaboration with faculty from Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia.
Adama, 5 December 2024 – Held in Adama from 2-5 December, the foundations course brought together a diverse group of 35 participants for four days of intensive learning and exchange on a broad range of topics, including issues such as the macrocriticality of climate change, macro modelling and data challenges, climate-sensitive budgeting and budget tagging, and adaptation finance.
The course was tailored to the needs of officials from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Planning and Development (MoPD), Ethiopia, and was also attended by several other government representatives.
Dr Harald Heubaum and Dr Jonathan Acosta Smith jointly delivered the sessions together with selected AAU faculty. This is a fundamental part of the RAMP approach: strengthening and supporting university partners to collectively build long-term capacity in central ministries responsible for financing, planning and implementing suitable macro-level adaptation actions. In addition, senior MoF and MoPD officials contributed their expertise through interventions focused on the macroeconomic dimensions of climate impacts and modelling.
This foundations course was the fourth in a series of training courses offered to civil servants in central ministries in key RAMP partner countries across sub-Saharan Africa. They are part of RAMP’s effort to help mainstream climate adaptation into the core capacities and operations of central ministries, supporting governments to align and effectively pursue their adaptation and development priorities, as well as access adaptation finance.
Dr Harald Heubaum, Deputy Academic Director of the RAMP University Network, reviewed RAMP’s training in 2024: “Together with our local university partners we successfully delivered four foundations courses this year. The model works very well and meets the needs of our participants, but a foundations course is only just the start of a journey.”
Professor Ulrich Volz, Academic Director of the RAMP University Network, emphasised the need to build on RAMP’s early progress: “RAMP is about building capacity over the long term. We have developed a suite of practitioner and academic training courses and look forward to more in-depth engagement with our partners.”
The RAMP University Network is a key part of the Resilience Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP), which was conceived and established jointly by the World Resources Institute and the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance. The objective of RAMP is to accelerate climate adaptation in developing countries by building capacity in ministries of finance, planning and economics, to understand, plan for, and finance climate adaptation actions.
