CHANCE – a new network on climate and health in Africa
Climate change and health are two of the most pressing issues facing African countries. Thus, it is imperative that people engaged in climate or health issues work together. The newly established network for climate and health in Africa, CHANCE (Climate-Health Africa Network for Collaboration and Engagement), aims to facilitate interactions and create greater coherence between these often siloed communities of practice.
Climate change and health interact in sometimes unexpected ways and together present great challenges as evidenced by the human health impacts of extreme heat, the nutrition implications of extreme droughts, and the compound emergencies arising from the co-occurrence of floods, locust outbreaks, and COVID-19 seen in East Africa in 2020.
Connecting health and climate change
Building more resilient health systems can create communities resilient to the impacts of climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions has many co-benefits for improving health outcomes.
Through the ENBEL project, the Climate Health Africa Network for Collaboration and Engagement (CHANCE) network was established. The network is open to national policy makers, climate services, humanitarian organizations, NGO’s, research institutes individual researchers and other stakeholders based in Africa.
Suggested focus on heat, air pollution and infectious diseases in Africa
CHANCE organized it’s first virtual workshop on September 22nd 2021 with a key note presentation on Heat stress, a threat to maternal and neonatal health in Africa. A total number of 33 participants from across Africa and Europe attended the workshop. During the workshop, CHANCE objectives and key focus areas were discussed in break-out groups and later presented for interactive discussion.
CHANCE has the following objectives
a) to network and develop synergies in East and Southern Africa
b) to facilitate knowledge exchanges, learning and cooperation
c) to provide technical support for national and regional applications for funding of program activities and research and finally
d) to support and inform policy processes.
CHANCE focal areas were suggested and are to be discussed and determined by the CHANCE members in follow-up workshops every second month. The suggested focal areas included Extreme heat and maternal, neonatal and child health, Air pollution, including from wildfires, and Climate and infectious diseases in Africa.
The CHANCE network is planning on site meetings in South Africa and Botswana in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The place, date and program are to be determined.
The coordination group of the CHANCE network is based at the University of Botswana with partners Climate Centre (global), Aga Khan University (Kenya), the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), LSHTM (UK) and CICERO (Norway).
For more information, please contact: Dr Vincent Pagiwa (vpagiwa@ub.ac.bw)