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Southern Africa
For the purpose of this section, Southern Africa comprises the following countries: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Eswathini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - all members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The SADC also includes Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo which are classified as Eastern Africa and Central Africa, respectively.

Climate
Generally, Southern Africa has a warm climate with three recognisable seasons: hot and dry (September - November); hot and wet (December-April) and cold and dry (May-August). While some areas, such as the Lesotho Highlands receive over 1000mm rainfall much of the region ranges from arid to sub-humid. Temperatures have been increasing and are expected to increase by as much as 6°C by the the turn of the century.

Like the rest of Africa, Southern Africa is susceptible and vulnerable  to climate change. Though, some countries in the region have been able to diversify their economies, some have not. Many of the people are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, hence the high vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

Some progress is being made in responding to climate change at the regional level. This includes the development and adoption of several regional climate change adaptation strategies e.g. SADC Policy Paper Climate Change, and the adaptation strategy for the water sector. In addition, there has been other efforts to enhance climate change adaptation, such as the tripatite Programme on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA-EAC-SADC).

Adaptation
Given that the region is not very industrialised and therefore contribute minimally to emissions, there is need to focus more on adaptation rather than mitigation. There have been  several initiatives at local (site-specific), local, national and regional scales aimed at strengthening to climate change. Some of these are: The Regional Climate Change Programme (RCCP), SASSCAL , ASSAR , UNDP Climate Change Adaptation , RESILIM , FRACTAL. South Africa implemented the Long-Term Adaptation Scenarios Flagship Research Programme (LTAS) from April 2012 to June 2014. This research also produced factsheets  and a technical report covering the SADC region entitled "Climate Change Adaptation: Perspectives for the Southern African Development Community (SADC)".