Guidelines and Screening Tool to support the mainstreaming of climate change into African Development Bank operations

Climate Safeguards System

Climate Safeguards System (CSS)

The African Development Bank, under a contract with the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership, is developing a Climate Safeguards System (CSS) as a set of decision-making tools and guides that enable the Bank to screen projects in vulnerable sectors for climate change risks and identify appropriate adaptation measures to reduce vulnerability. The system delivers on a key objective of the Climate Risk Management and Adaptation strategy (CRMA) and Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), which is to mainstream climate screening and adaptation in Bank projects.

The CSS comprises four (4) modules:

• Module 1: Climate Screening: the screening process assesses the vulnerability of a project concept to climate change and assigns to the project a categorization, ranging from 1 (most vulnerable) to 3 (least vulnerable);
• Module 2: Adaptation Review and Evaluation Procedures: this set of procedures has been developed to enable the user to identify adaptation measures for a project; a different set of procedures is followed depending on the categorization of the project;
• Module 3: Country Adaptation Factsheets: the factsheets can be produced at any time and are independent of the processes described above; they are based on a template into which up-to-date information on climate projections and country indicators can be imported from various sources;
• Module 4: CSS Information Base: the Information Base contains a portal that gives direct access to the climate projections developed for African Countries by the University of Cape Town; it also contains a database of adaptation activities and links to a wide range of information sources on adaptation; it provides information required for use of the modules described above.