New study exposes lack of climate adaptation finance to African countries and need for targeted efforts

Quantitative analysis shows that finance targeting mitigation was almost double that for adaptation. That is in sharp contrast to the UN Secretary General’s call for climate finance to be at least equally split between mitigation and adaptation. The study published in the journal Climate Policy also finds that funders have not strategically targeted adaptation finance to countries that are the most vulnerable.

African countries are among the most susceptible to the impacts of climate change in terms of food security, health, the economy and ecosystems. At the same time, their contributions to global warming are extremely limited. Without inclusive development and targeted adaptation measures, climate change is projected to push tens of millions more Africans into extreme poverty by 2030.

This study closes an important knowledge gap, as there has been no extensive mapping of climate finance to Africa to date. It tracks finance flows targeting adaptation to Africa from bilateral and multilateral funders from 2014–2018 and compares them to the amounts provided for mitigation. The mapping is based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and includes support from bilateral and multilateral funders, including multilateral developing banks (MDBs). A recently updated OECD report found that developing countries were falling roughly $20 billion short of their goal of mobilizing $100 billion in climate finance per year as of 2020. However, the report does not provide a breakdown for Africa by region, country or sector for finance targeting adaptation, mitigation or both simultaneously, nor does it identify the main providers of adaptation finance.

The research further shows that only two sectors, agriculture and water supply and sanitation, received half of the adaptation-related finance. It also reveals that more adaptation-related finance was provided as loans (57%) as opposed to grants (42%), which is problematic from a climate justice perspective as grant-based finance is more appropriate for highly indebted and vulnerable countries with little responsibility for climate change.

Regarding disbursement, the analysis found that adaptation finance for African countries was disbursed at a lower rate (46%) than mitigation finance (56%), and at a much lower rate than that for all of development finance to Africa over the same period.