Southern Africa to build climate change study centre

Southern African countries on Wednesday agreed to launch a centre to tie together climate change studies across the region. South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia signed a declaration to launch the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management in the Namibian capital Windhoek. Set up with 50 million euros in German aid, the centre will streamline regional scientific research on climate change trends and on managing natural resources to deal with them. "This initiative will bring knowledge, data, information and services generated by our own scientists with support of their colleagues from Germany," Zambian science minister John Phiri said at the launch. Research institutions of all the countries will study climate and its impact on water resources, forests, agriculture and wildlife. The centre will coordinate the research and sharing of information, with a secretariat based in Windhoek. "We want to define the priority areas where knowledge is needed to adapt to climate change and to mitigate its effects, to provide sound recommendations freely available to all interested parties," said German science minister Annette Schavan, who attended the launch. A similar centre was recently set up among 10 West African countries, also supported and funded by Germany.