Balgis Osman Elasha

African Development Bank – Sudan

Balgis Osman Elasha is a Sudanese climate scientist who studies the effects of climate change in Africa and promotes sustainable development and climate change adaptations. She was a lead writer on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report that garnered the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a Nobel Peace Prize, and she was named a 2008 United Nations Environment Programme Champion of the Earth.

Elasha holds a PhD in Forestry Science, Master in Environmental Science and a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) with honor in Forestry and Agricultural Science. She has more than 17 years’ experience in different climate change issues with special focus on vulnerability and adaptation assessment related to African countries and the Middle East.

Osman Elasha is winner of the UNEP Champions of the Earth Award for outstanding environmentalists, member of the IPCC Lead Authors-Nobel Peace Prize winners in 2007 such as winner of the highest achievement medal by the Government of Sudan in 2011.

She has described the severe effects of climate change in Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa region; promoted climate change adaptations; and pointed out the disparate contributions to climate change by industrialized countries. She notes that marginalized people, and women, particularly, are disproportionately affected by the negative effects of climate change, due to their dependence on threatened natural resources and because poverty limits their ability to adapt.

Osman-Elasha began her career doing forestry work at Sudan’s Forests National Corporation in the 1980s. Her Fuelwood Development for Energy project emphasized community forestry, fuel conservation, and sustainable forest management. As part of that project, her team distributed improved cookstoves to reduce firewood use. She credits this work with having introduced her to the climate variability experienced in rural areas of Sudan, and to the problems faced by the rural communities.

“In Africa, for example, old women represent wisdom pools with their inherited knowledge and expertise related to early warnings and mitigating the impacts of disasters. This knowledge and experience that has passed from one generation to another will be able to contribute effectively to enhancing local adaptive capacity and sustaining a community’s livelihood.“

Publications: See Research Gate

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/BalgisElasha
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/balgis-osman-elasha-8930817/

Video 1) COP19
Video 2) Champions of the Earth