CGIAR Welcomes Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $1.4 Billion Pledge to Climate Adaptation

Low-income country leaders gathered at COP27 have repeatedly called for climate finance to support the communities – and the farmers who feed them – to adapt to the worst impacts of climate change. This urgency for investments was echoed in UN data released last week, that revealed adaptation financing for developing countries is currently 5-10 times below the estimated need – and the gap is continuing to widen.

On Monday, CGIAR’s long-time partner and funder, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, took a step forward in addressing this gap by announcing USD 1.4 billion to fund immediate and long-term initiatives that will help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia build resilience and food security by 2025.

According to the Foundation, the investment will focus on spurring African-led innovation to build a pipeline of climate-smart agriculture projects and innovations for smallholder livestock farming. This will include supporting research and innovation in plant and animal genetics to improve tolerance of climate-related stresses and strengthening digital services to improve access to weather information.  

The project will also strengthen country planning, finance and water management systems to ensure adaptation solutions can be efficiently deployed where they are needed, and it will invest in African and South Asian organizations working to increase climate finance.

To support this project – and recognizing the significant contribution CGIAR makes to accelerating the development of innovations to tackle climate change – the Foundation is working to double the budget for CGIAR’s agriculture research system. The initiative partners with African research institutes, local businesses and farmer organisations to use big data and digital platforms to deliver insights that can boost incomes and food security.

CGIAR is honored to be a partner of the Foundation in critical work which advances climate-smart innovations for smallholder farmers, and we look forward to working together to deliver on this historic commitment.

Read the press release, and the Announcement Fact Sheet from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Header photo by A. Manik (independent consultant)/CCAFS.