Scientific knowledge on impact, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in Benin

Date Published 2018, September

Authors Constant Labitan, Alcade C. Segnon, Edmond Totin, Sarah D'haen

The stocktaking of science-based knowledge allows on one hand to get a broad picture of the existing scientific knowledge on impacts, vulnerability, adaptation options and strategies available in Benin for the three priority sectors. On the other hand, it allows to identify the gaps regarding the availability and reliability of the scientific information in each of these sectors. The scientific information available on impacts, vulnerability, adaptation options and strategies have been collected. There have been meetings organised between the scientists and the research institutes to discuss the results and the limits and difficulties encountered. The intermediary results have highlighted that there was an uncertainty in the attribution of impacts differentiating the share of climate and non-climate shocks. Frequently, the impact chains are unclear and limited to the analysis of only one sector. In addition, socio-economic considerations are only partially taken into account in future projections, which reduces the reliability of the forecasts. The study specifically highlighted that in the health sector, the evaluation of the potential effects of climate change do not always take quantitative projections into account. PAS-PNA is aware of this gap and based on this stocktaking, it is possible to determine what additional scientific information the sectoral vulnerability studies will provide. [French]