National Adaptation Plan 2016.

This National Adaptation Plan (NAP), developed in line with the principles of the UNFCCC, emphasizes resilience-building through reliance on proactive, anticipatory actions to reduce climate risks across different time scales. More in details, it aims at (i) reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change; (ii) building the capacity among Sudanese institutions in order to promote the development of climate change institutional arrangements for effective implementation of adaptation programs and activities; (iii) facilitating the integration of climate change adaptation into relevant new and existing policies, programs and activities; and (iv) enhancing existing efforts to identify and prioritize potential adaptation initiatives at the regional level. The document focuses on the following sectors (i) water resources; (ii) agriculture and food security; (iii) public health; (iv) coastal zones; and (v) rural communities. The document proceeds by covering all vulnerable regions and identifying key programmatic areas of focus.
To help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, the NAP suggests (i) the promotion of vegetable production to improve nutrition and, in general the development of programs and knowledge to improve agricultural production; (ii) promotion of fish farming as another source of income and food security; and (iii) increasing of horticultural crops.
In order to make agriculture and forestry more productive and sustainable, the document envisages many adaptation measures, including (i) changing policy to discourage malcultivation practices and introducing improved crop varieties for field and horticultural, shelter-belts, cultivation of early maturing crop varieties, crop rotation, and water harvesting and modern irrigation technologies; (ii) conducting studies to improve water management around the most vulnerable areas and evaluating the digging of wells and boreholes in areas that are safe from pollution and the introduction more efficient irrigation systems; (iii) conducting research around new drought resistant and early maturing varieties, that could help farmers adapt to shifting climate conditions, improving water harvesting techniques, and crop storage; (iv) introducing adaptation measures for rangelands, starting with the mapping and monitoring of the areas, and including rehabilitating livestock markets and encouraging farmers to replace cattle with smaller livestock, which would be better suited to drought, building awareness in local communities regarding sustainable management of natural resources, reseeding rangelands with favorable species; (v) conducting regular surveillance of animal diseases to limit the spread of diseases together with the rehabilitation of water accesses; (vi) improving livestock genetic resources and productivity; (vii) increasing in a sustainable manner soil fertility through use of organic fertilizer, strengthen agricultural extension, and a more efficient exploitation of surface and groundwater, and enhance communal water storage systems and to supplement rainfed agriculture; (viii) adaptation measures would include strengthening institutional capacity to create and implement land policy, including a revision of property right laws and the development of new land dispute mechanisms; (ix) the forest sector can be improved by planting trees inside reserved forests, cultivating courses of seasonal streams with trees and annuals to prevent soil deterioration, and protecting arable land through windbreaks; and (x) coastal zones adaptation measures include mangrove restoration and conservation and the development of program for marine-related research.
More inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems can be enabled though (i) straightening the participation of women and youth in the development process and environmental conservation; (ii) encouraging the establishment of women cooperatives and establishing rural women development programs; and (iii) supporting agriculture home garden with agricultural inputs (mainly seeds) for women.
The resilience of livelihoods to disasters will be faced through (i) the establishment of modern meteorological stations to better track climate shifts; (ii) advance agro-meteorological research so as to get required information about weather events and seasonal forecasting of weather and the establishment of early warning systems to collect and communicate weather data in a timely manner; (iii) promoting climate-friendly agriculture through strengthening extensions services and integrate with agricultural research institutions to build the capacity of farmers; and (iv) since climate change could accelerate the spread of malaria, yellow fever and cholera, more studies are needed to understand the link between rising temperatures, water stress and the spread of these diseases.