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5. COP28 and Sustainable Climate Finance

As previously highlighted, African countries have generally struggled to achieve food security due to increasingly hostile climatic conditions, inadequate water security, violent conflicts, persistently low agricultural productivity, and insufficient investments in agricultural infrastructure.

This post addresses the latter three, focusing on two key developments from the recent COP28 climate summit in Dubai and their role in complementing existing institutions and policies:

Firstly, the global declaration signed by 134 countries, including 25 African countries, places agricultural systems transformation at the forefront of the global climate agenda with expectations of enhancements to food systems, climate resiliency development, emission reductions, and reduction in global hunger (AfDB, 2023a). The declaration further supports the implementation of the Dakar 2 Food Summit in January where 34 African Heads of State and development organization leaders introduced the Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compacts delineating agricultural production objectives, milestone timelines, and supportive policies for rural infrastructure, smallholder farmers, and innovative financing with over $70 billion raised in commitments (AfDB, 2023a).

The declaration also aligns with the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) ‘Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation’ (TAAT) program that strives to increase 40 million smallholder farmers’ accessibility to innovative agricultural technologies with the intent of doubling productivity by 2025 (AfDB, 2023a). 13 million farmers across Africa have already benefitted from TAAT through the provision of greater-yielding, drought-resistant, pest-tolerant, and heat-resistant seeds (examples in video below), which directly aids the declaration’s objective of addressing hunger and climate action (AfDB, 2023a). 


Video: Examples of TAAT’s impact in Ethiopia and Sudan (ICARDA, 2021).

The declaration is further supported by the Africa Emergency Food Production Facility, an AfDB response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict-induced food crisis, which committed $1.5 billion to increasing 20 million smallholder farmers’ accessibility to verified agricultural inputs with the objective of producing $12 billion worth of food comprising 38 million metric tons (AfDB, 2023a).

Similarly, the Africa and Middle East SAFE Initiative is a milestone initiative comprising a $10 billion public-private partnership striving to ‘Scale-up Agriculture and Food systems for Economic’ (SAFE) progress across Africa and the Middle East through capitalizing on Africa’s agricultural capacity and the Middle East’s financing capabilities to increase green financing, encourage climate-smart agriculture amongst smallholder farmers, and generate green career opportunities (GGGI, 2023). The initiative seeks to irrigate 2 million hectares of farmland, improve 10 million smallholder farmer’s climate resilience particularly amongst women and youths, and holistically enhance food security in Africa (GGGI, 2023).

Despite these groundbreaking financial commitments, there is still a significant shortfall of funding: Africa received only $29.5 billion of climate finance inflows in 2019-20, far short of the $234.5-250 billion required annually (AfDB, 2023b). Furthermore, African countries still face significant challenges in sustainably attracting financing: early-stage grant and equity financing has been limited while later-stage debt is 2-3 times more expensive vis-à-vis advanced economies due to greater perceived and actual fiscal, regulatory, political, and reputational risks facing investors (IEA, 2023). 

Further evaluation and reflections will follow in the next blog.

Comments

  1. Jethro YangJanuary 5, 2024 at 8:48 AM

    I liked how you went into both the progress made during COP28 on agriculture security for African countries but, also how this progress is not enough to address the agricultural concerns and needs of the continent. In your opinion, what needs to be done to advance more African agricultural issues during international conventions like the COP?

    ReplyDelete

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