Ethiopia is making strides toward greater alignment between the two policy arenas of climate change and development. It is more than half a century since Ethiopia formulated its first national development plan. Since then, the country has gone through different planning phases and considered climate-change mitigation and adaptation to varying degrees, along with the objectives of reducing chronic poverty and food insecurity in the country.

This paper narrates Ethiopia’s experience and evolution with national development planning along the policy cycle [planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E)]. The paper further summarizes how the Ethiopian climate change mainstreaming process has evolved to become a core pillar of the national development agenda. The paper assesses the extent to which previous development plans, including the 10YDP and the updated NDC, were designed to consider long-term climate-change impacts and to identify priority areas for action. It also recommends approaches for effective mainstreaming of climate change and means for effective M&E of its implementation.

The study finds that climate-change mainstreaming is relatively strong during the planning process but remains weak during implementation. The paper makes several recommendations to address persistent challenges, including integration of bottom-up and top-down approaches, alignment of mechanisms for tracking climate action with national development tracking systems, and greater stakeholder engagement to support mainstreaming not only at planning phases but also routinely during implementation.

Executive Summary:

Highlights

  • Current mainstreaming efforts in Ethiopia build on a growing awareness of the importance of mitigating and adapting to climate change, improved methodologies for analysis, and increased participation of stakeholders in planning.
  • The 2011 Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy, which followed a top-down, national government-led process, was the first significant effort to mainstream climate change with development priorities in Ethiopia.
  • Although mainstreaming has improved, implementation of planned climate action remains weak and misaligned with other development efforts, partly due to poor institutional capacity and limited expertise and knowledge within government about climate change and development interlinkages.
  • Implementation is also hindered by weak monitoring and tracking—characterized by a lack of standardized data and tools — and limited capacity to report and verify climate change interventions.
  • Ethiopia’s mainstreaming experience highlights the importance of targeted engagement with sector ministries responsible for implementing climate action. This includes exploring how climate action supports good development outcomes and increasing actions that will offer win-win climate and development outcomes.
  • Future national planning should ensure that mainstreaming climate change occurs at all levels of government and throughout the policy cycle, spanning the planning process and resource mobilization and institutional arrangements at all administrative levels.

Background

How are climate and development strategies aligned in Ethiopia?

Ethiopia is making strides toward greater alignment between the two policy arenas of climate change and development. It is more than half a century since Ethiopia formulated its first national development plan. Since then, the country has gone through different planning phases and considered climate-change mitigation and adaptation to varying degrees, along with the objectives of reducing chronic poverty and food insecurity in the country. However, the broad mainstreaming of climate-change mitigation and adaptation interventions into Ethiopia’s planning efforts was not established until 2011, when its Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy (CRGE) was introduced. Since that time, the pursuit of a climate-resilient green economy has been a major pillar in Ethiopian development plans. The development of Ethiopia’s CRGE strategy was a pioneering effort to embed transformational climate policies in the overall planning approach for economic growth and development, one that very few developing countries had previously attempted.

The CRGE served as a critical element of Ethiopia’s initial Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). It also served as a foundational input for the recent, first-ever 10-Year Development Plan (10YDP) and the subsequent update and enhancement of the country’s NDC. Although the CRGE document has not been updated, the underlying analysis, including the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission modeling framework, has seen several improvements over the initial iteration, benefitting from the CRGE assessment. Following the assessment and the submission of the updated nationally determined contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the end of 2020, refinements were made to the sectoral analyses and assumptions to better reflect the latest national development targets and validate the updated modeling results. These supplemental efforts helped ensure that intervention options were fully vetted with government stakeholders and well-aligned with the new 10-year development plan.

Currently, Ethiopia is in the midst of preparing a long-term low-carbon GHG emission development strategy (LT-LEDS) the formulation of which requires assessing how climate actions were mainstreamed in previous national development plans and the strengths and weakness of the mainstreaming process.

About This Working Paper

Several studies have examined Ethiopia’s national planning process in the context of climate change as well as the successes and failures of the CRGE strategy. However, no studies to date have examined questions around the mainstreaming process and the extent to which climate change and development are well integrated in policy and planning. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining two key questions:

Several studies have examined Ethiopia’s national planning process in the context of climate change as well as the successes and failures of the CRGE strategy. However, no studies to date have examined questions around the mainstreaming process and the extent to which climate change and development are well integrated in policy and planning. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining two key questions:

  • How has Ethiopia tackled mainstreaming and what experience does it have in integrating considerations of climate change into national development plans to support the achievement of objectives in both policy arenas?
  • What are the lessons learned to improve mainstreaming of climate change into development planning, policy design and implementation, and tracking efforts?

This paper explores the experience in Ethiopia and is a resource for policymakers and planners who are considering mainstreaming climate actions into their development strategies. The paper highlights practices, challenges, and lessons learned from Ethiopia’s planning experience. It narrates Ethiopia’s experience of integrating climate change within national development planning and its evolution along the policy cycle [planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E)]. The paper further summarizes how the Ethiopian CRGE strategy mainstreaming process has evolved to become a core pillar of the national development agenda. The paper assesses the extent to which previous development plans, including the 10YDP and the updated NDC, were designed to consider long-term climate-change impacts and to identify priority areas for action. It also recommends approaches for effective mainstreaming of the CRGE strategy and means for effective M&E of its implementation.

Key Findings and Recommendations

The study finds that climate-change mainstreaming is relatively strong during the planning process but remains weak during implementation. Climate action is generally siloed from more traditional economic and development endeavors, for example, energy and land-use planning. Beyond this, many persistent challenges impede the alignment of climate and development objectives in implementation, including the presence of weak institutional capacity; lack of technical capacity of experts at the national, regional, and woreda (local district) levels; and weak monitoring and tracking systems.

We recommend that climate change mainstreaming be better designed to benefit from both bottom-up and top-down approaches. Appropriate baselines and targets could be set at national and lower administrative levels of governance. Mainstreaming and integration of climate change should also be guided and informed by the long-term development vision of the country, drawing on established milestones set to guide the development pathway.

Measuring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) and M&E mechanisms for tracking climate action, including the means of implementation, should be integrated and aligned with national development and economic tracking systems. Implementation progress could then easily be tracked across all areas of climate action. This procedural alignment should be supported by strengthened technical and analytical capacity.

Finally, we strongly recommend that climate action should be mainstreamed not only at planning phases but also routinely during implementation of climate and development plans. Greater stakeholder engagement at various regional and local levels in the planning phases could be expected to enhance buy-in and ownership of the actions to be taken, ultimately supporting the execution and implementation of climate actions and their chances to succeed.