Through the African Youth Adaptation Solutions (YouthADAPT) Challenge, the AAAP aims to inspire and support the commercialisation of climate change adaptation solutions, driven by African youth entrepreneurs. The YouthADAPT Challenge is open to solutions (products, services, tools, or ideas) targeted at climate change adaptation and increasing resilience. 

Admissible solutions can represent:

• An adaptation solutions business that has not been scaled and is not in widespread use
• An existing resilience and adaptation solutions business or product
• A commercially viable means to raise awareness or scale uptake of specific adaptation solutions.

Applicants must be 18–35 years old and registered and operating in Africa. Their venture must be youth-led while delivering climate adaptation or resilience solutions addressing a real-life challenge. 50% of the finalists will be women-owned or women-led enterprises. Winners will receive a business grant of up to $100,000 and the opportunity to further develop their ventures through business support and acceleration.

The Cycle 1 (2021) winners were unveiled at COP26 in Glasgow, United Kingdom, in a ceremony held at the Africa Pavilion. They include Mumita Holdings Limited, Cameroon, Salubata Technological Innovations Limited, Nigeria, Sustainable Builders, Zambia, Global Farms and Trading Company Limited, Ghana, Miama General Dealers Limited, Zambia, Kimplanter Seedling and Nurseries Limited, Kenya, Irri Hub Ke Limited, Kenya, Soupah Farm en- Market Limited, Nigeria, Simkay Green Global Ventures, Nigeria and Bleaglee Waste Management Limited, Cameroon.

Countries in the Horn of Africa (HoA) are vulnerable to climatic shocks and their impact can have a devastating effect on agricultural production. The most vulnerable regions are arid and semi-arid areas that receive low rainfall and depend on pastoralism as the main economic activity. Elevated levels of food insecurity and conflict resulting from increased competition for pasture and water among pastoral communities is a concern for governments of HoA countries.

Strategies for increasing resilience need to be customized to different sub-regions and microclimates. Initiated in 2019, The Horn of Africa Initiative brings together 6 countries – Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan – to deepen economic integration and promote regional cooperation. The countries agreed that regional cooperation and economic integration should remain key to the overall recovery efforts of the sub-region.

The project described here focused on “Identifying Climate-Smart Digital Opportunities with Scaling Potential under the Horn of Africa Initiative”.

Rising average temperatures, longer heat waves, more extreme precipitation events and locust invasions are just some of the adverse effects of climate change that will impact agriculture in Africa. Climate change is expected to cause a decrease in crop productivity due to increased heat and drought. Some crops are likely to be particularly at risk, such as cotton in Côte d'Ivoire or Ghana. This phenomenon will directly impact the population, with greater consequences for the most vulnerable famers. 

In the face of rising climate risk across Africa, insurance is a key adaptation measure to strengthen food security and ensure climate resilience. However, the agricultural insurance market is nascent, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 3% of farmers are protected. 

The underdevelopment of agricultural insurance in Africa is due to a variety of factors, including the lack of organization in local value chains, the low profitability potential of programmes, and a general lack of financial resources and knowledge about insurance. Also, farmers do not consider agricultural insurance to be a priority.

YouthADAPT is an annual competition that invites young entrepreneurs and micro, small, and medium enterprises in Africa to submit innovative solutions and business ideas that have the potential to drive climate change adaptation and resilience across the continent.

Through YouthADAPT, the AAAP aims to inspire and support the commercialisation of climate change adaptation solutions, driven by African youth entrepreneurs. The YouthADAPT Challenge is open to solutions targeted at climate change adaptation and increasing resilience. 

Solutions can represent:

• An adaptation solutions business that has not been scaled and is not in widespread use
• An existing resilience and adaptation solutions business or product
• A commercially viable means to raise awareness or scale uptake of specific adaptation solutions.

The second edition of the African Youth Adaptation Solutions (YouthADAPT) Challenge was launched in September 2022. Winners will receive a business grant of up to $100,000 and the opportunity to further develop their ventures through business support and acceleration.

The target countries of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Togo and Zambia are regions experiencing high deforestation, poor agriculture yield and increasing poverty exacerbated by climate change. Across all four countries, climate variability and change has become a major threat to sustainable development. 

As part of efforts to address these challenges, the four countries are implementing national projects to establish Staple Crops Processing Zones: initiatives designed to concentrate agro-processing activities within areas of high agricultural potential to boost productivity and integrate production, processing and marketing of selected commodities. These initiatives are purposely built shared facilities, to enable agricultural producers, processors, aggregators and distributors to operate in the same vicinity to reduce transaction costs and share business development services for increased productivity and competitiveness.

Developing adequate infrastructure (energy, water, roads, ICT) in rural areas of high agricultural potential should attract investments from private agro-industrialists/entrepreneurs to contribute to the economic and social development of rural areas.

The Sahel region faces more challenges to achieving sustainable development in the face of poverty, insecurity and climate change than perhaps any other. The region also includes five of the ten poorest nations in the world (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger). Together these form the G5 Sahel, where more than three quarters of the 86 million people who live there have no access to electricity.

This region also has some of the highest solar energy irradiation and photovoltaic potential in the world, though economic development is constrained in part by the energy supply gap. To take advantage of this opportunity, the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Financing Facility aims to tap this ‘free’ resource by increasing solar power generation and electricity access, while addressing structural challenges in the energy sector.

The target countries of this project (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan) are located in the arid and semi-arid lands, which comprise more than 70% of the Horn of Africa (HOA) region, receive less than 600 mm of annual rainfall and are characterized by recurrent droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns. 

Despite the region’s considerable range of natural resources, with their huge potential for wealth and progress, the HOA countries are struggling to cope with their worsening ecological circumstances. Droughts are increasing in severity and frequency and their impacts are exacerbated by advancing desertification, land degradation, global warming, and climate change. These circumstances have created chronic vulnerability in the HOA, with persistent food insecurity, widespread economic hardships, conflicts, and migration. The strategic priorities of countries in the HOA are defined by their urgent need to build resilience to environmental and socio-economic shocks, through investing in sustainable development and optimizing the productivity of their resources.

Zambezi River Basin, in Southern Africa Region, has the largest drainage basin (1.4 million km2) with rich variety of natural resources, covering parts of eight riparian states namely Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Despite this potential, riparian states are struggling to cope up with worsening ecological circumstances, environmental degradation, global warming, and climate change, which have created conditions of chronic vulnerability, food insecurity, and economic hardships

With improvements to the road, rail, shipping and aviation networks a key government goal, Gabon’s transport sector is undergoing a major transformation. While population pressure is modest, with around 1.7m people in the country, existing links are limited; the two largest cities, Libreville and Port-Gentil, had, until work began on one recently, no road connection. 

The 828 km long Transgabonaise road is key as it connects Libreville (the capital and coastal city) and Franceville (third Gabonese city after Port-Gentil). It comprises several segments of the Routes Nationales (RN) 1 to 4. Despite its strategic importance, the road has suffered from substantial deterioration due to a lack of maintenance and increased traffic over the last decade, caused by the increase of population and lumbering.

The Sahel, which lies between the Sahara Desert to the north and tropical savannas to the south, is one of the largest semi-arid/arid sub-regions globally. As such, the region is highly vulnerable to climate change and other uncertainties. The impacts of climate change may have critical socio-economic consequences for the Sahel, including poor agricultural yields, increased frequency of natural disasters. Already, the number of people in the Sahel suffering from chronic food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and vulnerability to the effects of climate change is rising steadily. 

A lasting solution to food and nutrition insecurity in the Sahel requires building resilience to climate change, long-term agricultural sector financing and developing trade and regional integration. Sustained, longer-term investments in household resilience can significantly reduce the cost of emergency assistance, ultimately breaking the cycle of recurring famine. This is the most cost-effective intervention option which meets the basic needs and preserves the dignity of the populations of the Sahel. This idea is central to the Programme to Build Resilience to Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2RS)