The African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) is an institute at the University of Cape Town (UCT).Since its inception in 2011, ACDI has grown to be a world-leading research institute that contributes to shaping science, policy, and practice on climate resilient and low carbon development across Africa and globally. In line with UCT’s Vision 2030, we are committed to building a fair and just society that is rooted in Africa with global reach.
ACDI’s work centres around three themes, namely: (1) Climate risk diagnosis, (2) Climate governance, and (3) Climate resilient development. These are discussed in more detail in Section 3. ACDI works on these themes through engaging in transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, developing and facilitating training and capacity building initiatives, synthesis of data and information, and convening diverse stakeholders to deliberate key issues and influence climate and development discourses and decisions.
Our Values
Making an Impact
To make an impact, we prioritise five objectives. Each objective has several key results to guide and evaluate progress towards achieving the objectives.
ACDI was established in 2011 by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town as a strategic initiative, to “facilitate and substantially extend climate change research and education at UCT with the specific context of addressing the development challenges of Africa from an African perspective”.
ACDI surpassed this initial mandate and achieved formal status as a university institute in 2018. Simultaneously, the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) awarded ‘Centre of Excellence’ (CoE) status for ‘Climate and Development’ to ACDI alongside partners at the Universities of Nairobi and Ghana. Viewed as one of the continent’s foremost climate change institutes, ACDI provides a platform for UCT’s and ARUA’s collective response to the challenge of climate change by coordinating and centralising resources to enable inter- and transdisciplinary research, teaching and learning in the areas of climate change and sustainable development across Africa and beyond.
In our strategic plan, we set out ACDI’s intentions for the coming years..
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