The African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI) is UCT’s active response to the climate change and development challenge. The ACDI was set up in 2011 by the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Vice-Chancellor Max Price as one of four strategic initiatives, each contributing to UCT’s mission to tackle key issues in the social and natural worlds. It is also one of the Vice-Chancellor’s signature themes; these themes are chosen to drive research in a strategic manner, and are grounded in existing areas of internationally-recognized excellence at UCT , whilst being aligned to institutional, regional and national priorities. Uniquely, the ACDI merges climate change issues with development issues, bringing together UCT’s breadth and depth of research and teaching in these areas, which previously were conducted largely in isolation within a variety of departments and research centres.