Assessing Climate Risks and Emissions Reduction in African Economic Zones

The Natural Resources Stewardship Programme II (NatuReS) supports sustainable industrial development in economic zones across Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. The currently ongoing second programme phase NatuReS II promotes Stewardship Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships that bring together public, private, and civil society actors to jointly manage natural resources. The programme aims to address growing pressures on water, land, and ecosystems in rapidly developing industrial zones, while integrating climate mitigation and adaptation strategies into local governance and infrastructure planning. It is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).

Our assignment

Under this programme, EarthYield Advisories was commissioned to conduct a scientific assessment of two key areas:

1. Mitigation Modelling: We are quantifying the avoided greenhouse gas emissions from two partnership interventions—(1) the establishment of a water-efficient irrigation system in Tanzania, and (2) the production of construction materials from recycled plastic waste in Ethiopia. Hereby, we apply the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, quantifying emissions at all relevant stages (production, operation etc.) of the partnership activities. This is done with the program OpenLCA and the data set Ecoinvent.

2. Climate Risk Assessments: We are modelling climate risks for four specific economic zones—located in Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. These assessments consider future climate hazards (e.g., droughts, floods, extreme heat), sectoral vulnerabilities, and local adaptation capacities to inform long-term, resilient development planning.

The results will support evidence-based decision-making and contribute to the alignment of partnership activities with national climate strategies.

The project runs until December 2025.