POLICY BRIEF

This policy brief describes a pilot study conducted by the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP), the UK Met Office, and Atkins as part of the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) programme. The study investigated the current and potential future use of medium- to long-term climate information for adaptation in Rwanda, identifying gaps in how policy-makers integrate climate projections into national planning and infrastructure projects.

• Rwanda's current policies primarily address adaptation based on existing climate variability, but there are significant opportunities to integrate longer-term climate projections into national programmes.
• Most policy-makers in Rwanda rely on qualitative narratives of future change rather than quantitative climate projections, and the use of various inconsistent sources leads to discrepancies in information.
• There is a general lack of consideration regarding future climate model uncertainty among end users, who often omit this information even when it is present in primary sources, believing that focusing on uncertainty hinders the communication of risks.
• Land use and green city planning are identified as the most promising areas for the application of medium- to long-term climate information, whereas climate-proofing road surfaces may be an example of economic maladaptation due to the short lifetime of road surfaces.
• The use of climate information is often limited by a trade-off between immediate costs and long-term benefits, characterized by high discount rates in the public sector and short payback periods in the private sector.
• Effective integration of climate information requires identifying the correct 'windows of opportunity' in the planning process; for example, climate change considerations in hydropower are too late at the environmental impact assessment stage and should occur during the strategic environmental assessment or design-engineering phase.
• There is a need for harmonized, country-specific climate projections for Rwanda, accompanied by local expertise and a shift in communication from 'what we don't know' to 'what we do know'.

APA

Watkiss, P. (2015). POLICY BRIEF. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FCFA_PolicyBrief_Rwanda_FINAL.pdf

Chicago

Watkiss, Paul. POLICY BRIEF. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2015. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FCFA_PolicyBrief_Rwanda_FINAL.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Watkiss |first1=Paul |title=POLICY BRIEF |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=January 2015 |url=http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FCFA_PolicyBrief_Rwanda_FINAL.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{watkiss2015policy, author = {Watkiss, Paul}, title = {{POLICY BRIEF}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2015}, month = jan, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FCFA_PolicyBrief_Rwanda_FINAL.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }