The SERVIR Vulnerability Impacts and Assessments (VIA) team at RCMRD is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania training national technical experts on technologies being applied in East Africa to assess climate change vulnerability for key development sectors.

The training builds from the Planning for Resilience in East Africa through Policy, Adaptation, Research and Economic Development (PREPARED) Climate Change VIAs in the East African Community and the Lake Victoria Basin and RCMRD’s VIA work in Malawi, and in the Northern rangelands of Kenya. The training materials and tools being used are open-source, for example, GeoCLIM and R for statistics. Additionally, the experts are using ESRI’s ArcGIS for spatial analysis and mapping.

The aim of vulnerability assessments in this context is to identify current and plausible future impacts of climate change, the sensitivities of people and ecosystems to the impacts, and the existing capacities that can support adjustment to the impacts. The training started on 19th September and will end on 23rd September, 2016. It is supported by SERVIR E&SA, RCMRD, PREPARED, ICPAC, FEWSNET and ESRI EA.

*GeoCLIM is designed for climatological analysis of historical rainfall and temperature data. It was developed by USGS FEWS NET in support of the USAID PREPARED and Global Climate Change activities. http://chg.geog.ucsb.edu/tools/geoclim/

*R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. https://www.r-project.org/

*PREPARED is a USAID funded climate change adaptation project for East Africa which aims at strengthening the resiliency and sustainability of East African economies, trans-boundary freshwater ecosystems, and communities.