LUMS Hosts a Workshop on Climate Adaptation in Pakistan
June 19, 2012
A national consultation and workshop on climate change adaptation in Pakistan was held on June 18, 2012, at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) as part of the multi-year and multi-dimensional research project on “The Determinants, Impact and Cost Effectiveness of Climate Change Adaptation in Indus Ecoregion”. A stellar group of experts from all across Pakistan spent the full-day meeting discussing climate adaptation in Pakistan and on how to structure frameworks for research on the subject as part of this project.
The three-year research project, led by LUMS Vice Chancellor Dr. Adil Najam, is a joint research initiative between LUMS and World Wide Fund for Nature - Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), with funding support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The goals of the project are to conduct field-based research on climate adaptation in Pakistan in the context of agriculture and of food security. The LUMS-WWF project aims to produce a major micro-economic analysis of climate change adaptation at the field level, a political economy analysis of options and choices, and a set of policy briefs related to the topic. Apart from the WWF-P team, the project will involve faculty, research associates and students at LUMS as a part of the capacity building aspect of the three-year project.
The workshop brought together some of the leading scholars and policy practitioners on climate change and on agriculture and food security in Pakistan for an intensive all-day set of discussions. Those present included: Dr. Sartaj Aziz (Former Minister of Finance), Amb Shafqat Kakakhel (SDPI), Khadija Haq (Mahbub-ul-Haq Centre), Dr. Mahjabeen Abidi-Habib (LEAD), Shakeel Ramay (SDPI) Dr. Ghulam Rasul (Chief Meteorologist of Pakistan), Dr. Pervaiz Amir (senior Agronomist), Syed Ayub Qutub (PIEDAR), Azheruddin Khan (NEC), Prof. Turab Hussain (LUMS), Ahmad Rafay Alam (LUMS), Dr. Adil Najam (LUMS), Basharat Saeed (LUMS), Ali Dehlavi (WWF-P), Ali Hassan Habib (WWF-P) and others.
In addition, Dr. Ben Groom, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE) was a key participant and discussed research frameworks, including the one proposed to be used in this research. Dr. Groom will be working with the project in the analysis of its field-based component. He is also leading a training seminar at LUMS on Stata, a statistical software that is useful in policy analysis, on campus on June 19, 2012.
Each presented their work on sample designs to establish a framework for the project. Topics discussed included food security, adaptation of households and farmers, and projected meteorological patterns in Pakistan. The value of effectively disseminating knowledge gained in this research was also emphasized, along with the groups’ responsibility to the public and themselves to take the work seriously. Dr. Najam pointed out that this work would be valuable not only for Pakistan, but for the global discussion of the issue.
This LUMS-WWF project is another expression of the university’s commitment to environmental consciousness and sustainable development. This commitment has recently been formalised with the SarSubz LUMS campaign. SarSubz has introduced initiatives like the bike share programming and tree plantation, and has been mentioned in conferences like the Rio+20 Earth Summit as a practical application of green economy.
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