Climate change is already having a catastrophic impact on Africa compared to the rest of the world. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, leaving 22 million people at risk of starvation according to the World Food Programme, and seven out of the 10 countries worst hit by the effects of climate change are in Africa, even though we contribute only around four percent of global emissions as an entire continent.
Africa is warming faster than the rest of the world, according to the 6 th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so we know that worse is still to come regardless of targets on carbon emissions agreed or not by the world’s biggest polluters.
African countries need USD $579 billion 1 between 2020 and 2030 to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions2 (NDCs) as set out by the Paris Agreement, USD $52.7 billion 3 of which is needed for adaptation to the effects of climate change per annum. The financing gap currently stands at USD $41.3 billion 4 each year.
The effects of climate change are preventing food security in Africa with the livelihoods of 53% of the Sub-Saharan African labour force, who rely on agriculture, under threat. Africa’s vulnerability to climate risks is compounded by high levels of poverty, lack of access to basic services, governance challenges, wealth and gender inequalities, as well as reduction in natural resources, conflict and the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the IPCC, on average, countries in Africa experienced a GDP per capita 13.6% lower than it would have been between 1990 and 2010 if human-induced climate change had not occurred, putting increasing pressure on economic growth and development.
Against this ever-worsening backdrop, adaptation financing to help African nations both plan for and implement adaptation plans has never been more urgent.
What is needed?
At the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, developed countries agreed to mobilise USD $100 billion per year to developing countries by 2020, which has not been achieved and now pushed back to 2025. In 2020, developed countries mobilised USD $83.3 billion, a shortfall of USD $16.7 billion5. The Adaptation Fund, initiated in 2001, received pledges of USD $348.9 million at COP26 in Glasgow last year, yet USD $230 million of these pledges have gone unfulfilled. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to a decrease in funding for adaptation, mainly driven by a massive drop in international climate finance flows from developed countries.
Finance for adaptation in Africa falls short in both quantity and quality. Despite ongoing national and international efforts both to plan for and respond to climate change, finance for adaptation has been well below the levels needed. The IPCC Report also outlines how implementation of adaptation has received limited attention globally. This must change.
Africa’s annual climate finance needs for meeting NDC goals (both adaptation and mitigation) between 2020 and 2030 are estimated at USD $277 billion annually6, growing ninefold from USD $30 billion in 2020. This is just 11% of the continent’s climate finance needs and indicates an alarming 89% climate financing gap each year.
More than half of climate adaptation finance commitments tracked in Africa from 2019 to 2020 from developed countries were also in the form of loans or debt-based finance and targeting just two sectors: agriculture and water supply and sanitation, while other key sectors such as health and infrastructure are receiving far below what is needed.
Africa leads the way
In the face of apparent apathy from the international world, Africa is leading the way in climate adaptation finance. African countries are already spending approximately 10% of their GDP towards adaptation7, which in 2017 equated to 20% of public expenditure by African governments8. This is not happening anywhere else in the world .
South Sudan is preparing to spend 3.1% of its GDP (equivalent to USD $376.3 million) on adaptation every year until 2030. Sierra Leone is set to spend 2.3% of its current GDP, equivalent to USD $90 million, on its climate adaptation.
The list goes on, with Ethiopia, Liberia, South Africa and Togo already spending more than 2.8% of their GDP on climate adaptation each year 9.
More than just the money
Investing in adaptation has socio-economic and resilience-building benefits, and for every dollar invested in adaptation, there is up to USD $10 in net economic return. But adaptation is about more than just increasing the amount of funding available and unlocking existing pledged funds: it is about preparing for the effects of climate change that are still to come and ensuring there is sufficient capacity building and technology transfer.
Africa’s adaptation planning still has some way to go. As of October 2022, only 13 African countries had submitted their National Adaptation Plans to the UNFCCC. And even when countries do have plans in place, the gap between the plans and the extent to which they are implemented is particularly high, as the Executive Summary of Africa Adaptation Initiative’s (AAI) State of Adaptation in Africa Report outlines.
And we must accelerate ongoing planning processes to transition African countries from adaptation ‘planning’ to actual implementation to reduce our vulnerability to climate change and risk. The urgent need to transition is driven by the urgency of climate change, so we must not only accelerate funding but also focus on closing the policy-implementation gap.
A glimmer of hope?
Despite the negative press post COP27, there were some positive moves in the right direction. The United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, announced a USD $25 million injection to launch AAI’s Food Security Accelerator. This will speed up and scale private sector investments in climate-resilient food security across Africa. The EU and Germany announced €5 million respectively to support the AAI to scale up adaptation actions and investments. The Open Society Foundation also announced USD $4.5 million to the initiative.
While this is encouraging news, we still need to face the harsh reality that Africa needs billions of dollars annually to adapt to the very real and devastating impacts of climate change it is already dealing with. Countries across Africa are taking the lead, spending higher proportions of their GDPs than many developed countries to tackle the effects of climate change, but it is not enough.
Africa needs global support to plan for and adapt to the ravages of climate change still to come. At the moment, we are paying a very high price for global temperature rises – it’s time the international community stepped in and helped pick up more of the bill.
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1 Georgia Savvidou, Aaron Atteridge, Kulthoum Omari-Motsumi & Christopher H. Trisos (2021) Quantifying international public finance for climate change adaptation in Africa, Climate Policy, 21:8, 1020-1036, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2021.1978053.
2 A Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Each Party to the Paris Agreement is required to establish an NDC and update it every five years.
3 Georgia Savvidou, Aaron Atteridge, Kulthoum Omari-Motsumi & Christopher H. Trisos (2021) Quantifying international public finance for climate change adaptation in Africa, Climate Policy, 21:8, 1020-1036, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2021.1978053.
4 https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/climate-financeneeds-of-african-countries/
5 https://www.eurodad.org/where_do_things_stand_on_the_global_100_billion_climate_finance_goal
6 https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/press-release/new-study-finds-that-climate-finance-for-africa-needs-to-grow-9x-from-usd-30-billion-to-usd-277-billion-to-meet-2030-climate-goal/
7 https://gca.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/GCA-Financial-Innovation-for-Climate-Adaptation-in-Africa-2022.pdf
8 ACPC, 2017. AFRICA IS SPENDING MORE THAN ITS FAIR SHARE FOR ADAPTATION; Information brief. http://www.climdev-africa.org/sites/default/files/DocumentAttachments/Information%20Brief-Adaptation%20COP23_New.pdf
9 https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/2021/10/20/aaap_delivery-through-cop_1.pdf
