Climate Risk to Resilience: Financing adaptation in African countries

A caricature of the situation in climate finance, particularly regarding Africa, is a classic vicious circle: Climate finance is not flowing because of the lack of bankable investment plans; the lack of investment plans is due to a lack of faith that climate finance will flow.

Like any caricature, this one misses many details but captures a salient point: Climate finance, particularly for adaptation to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa, is not flowing at anywhere close to what is needed, despite multiple declarations of intent and a plethora of planning exercises.

The African Climate Foundation (ACF), IFPRI, partner governments in African countries, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and other partners seek to step into this breach. The aim is to establish a virtuous circle in which climate and development plans are developed, funded, implemented, and evaluated and refined—leading to effective and progressively larger investments, alongside appropriate policies, for achieving development objectives in a context of climate change. This effort gets underway in earnest with the November 7 launch of reports on climate policy and adaptation from four African countries—Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia—titled “Climate Risk to Resilience.”