This year, Edith Ofwona Adera, Coordinator of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) and the African Development Bank’s Regional Principal Officer for Climate Change and Green Growth, marked International Women’s Day in a special way.

Adera took part in a panel discussion organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat, reflecting this year’s theme: Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.

The panel, hosted by Jennifer Namgyal of the Commonwealth Secretariat, brought together experts who shared their experiences and lessons learned on integrating gender equality in Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, across their respective regions and institutions. NDCs are national plans highlighting climate actions, including targets, policies and measures that governments aim to implement.

Hannah Girardeau, of the NDC Partnership Support Unit, kicked off the session with a presentation on the findings of an analysis of gender considerations in revised NDCs of the partnership’s member countries. The assessment revealed that more countries had now included the fundamental building blocks of gender-responsive climate action in their policies and plans.  Girardeau noted that there is a need to invest in other critical elements such as conducting gender analyses, developing indicators, and establishing gender-responsive budgets to complement progress achieved.

Adera agreed with her. “As climate change impacts affect people differently, the responses need to be differentiated, based on identified unique needs, informed by disaggregated data,” Adera added.

To address this challenge, the African Development Bank is supporting national statistical systems in five countries through a Capacity Building for Gender Statistics and Monitoring Systems project. The project aims to produce quality, comparable and regular gender statistics to address national data gaps, strengthen monitoring systems, and integrate gender indicators across sectors.

Bertha Chiudza of the Green Climate Fund said a key requirement for all its financed activities is to ensure gender considerations are included in the development of action plans and assessments. “For its support on Nationally Determined Contributions, the Green Climate Fund ensures that gender considerations are brought in from planning and design, implementation and reporting across the sectors prioritized by countries, while ensuring inclusive stakeholder consultations,” Chiudza stated.

Sasha Jattansingh, the Commonwealth Climate Finance Adviser, gave insights into Antigua and Barbuda’s actions to mainstream gender equality into Nationally Determined Contributions. The country recognized equity issues and committed to a just energy transition with a strong focus on gender, Jattansingh noted. Antigua and Barbuda is an example of a country that has made progress in developing an inclusive renewable energy strategy that promotes socially inclusive, gender-responsive, and accessible investment opportunities.

Anna Rojas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature also shared her experiences and lessons in integrating gender into Nationally Determined Contributions, pointing out that biodiversity issues are now being integrated more consistently in these plans. She called for local-level conversations with women to tap into their strengths and rich knowledge. “Engagement with women will avoid dismal adaptation because, the more we identify needs, strengths, and solutions, the better we will be prepared,” she emphasized.

The African Development Bank is rolling out a detailed analysis of climate-gender hotspots in Rwanda. Adera said it would highlight real gender gaps and deep vulnerabilities, and how best climate interventions can address these gender issues.

Finance also emerged as one of the vital tools to promote gender equality in Nationally Determined Contributions. Innovative financial instruments and solutions must come into play when addressing gender inequalities for climate change interventions, noted Unnikrishnan Nair of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, is dubbed ‘African COP’ as the impact of climate change on African countries will be a key theme of discussions. Agriculture and food systems will also be a critical focus of COP27, with Saturday, 12 November, dedicated to both themes, in addition to adaptation. Also high on the climate agenda is the role of the youth, as 10 November is dedicated to their participation.

Ahead of COP27 and in line with their commitment to this youth agenda, the African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation hosted a webinar to examine ways to make agriculture attractive to the youth.

The webinar titled, Are Climate-Smart and Digital Agriculture Solutions the Silver Bullet to Attract Youth, highlighted the potential of climate-smart and digital agriculture in attracting young people and thereby rejuvenating an aging global agricultural sector.

Dr. Kevin Kariuki, African Development Bank’s Vice President for Power Energy, Climate and Green Growth, pointed out the challenges the agriculture sector faces due to the changing climate change.

“Agriculture across most of sub-Saharan Africa is still predominantly rain-fed and therefore extremely vulnerable to both short-term fluctuations and long-term changes in climate conditions. It is the most exposed sector with estimates indicating that climate change will cause a decrease in yields of 8 – 22% for Africa’s rain-fed staple crops over the next 20 years,” Kariuki said.

Dr. Beth Dunford, African Development Bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, noted that while agriculture holds tremendous potential for job creation in Africa, its current traditional form is not attractive to young people for various reasons, including negative perceptions.

“Who wants to wear overalls, dig the field with a hoe or drive a tractor when we can do it in a suit and dust coat, right? However, technology makes agriculture cool enough to motivate them to use tech-enabled enterprises to be part of agricultural value chains,” Dunford said.

Prof. Anthony Nyong, Senior Director for Africa at the Global Centre on Adaptation, said: “There is a gap in the agriculture sector in Africa, and that is in the use of digital solutions.”

AAAP’s Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security Pillar is scaling up access to digital technologies and associated data-driven agricultural and financial services for at least 30 million African farmers.

In the African Development Bank’s Program to Build Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security in the Horn of Africa (BREFONS), currently ongoing in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, the AAAP is facilitating the integration of climate-smart digital technologies for adaptation and resilience.

“The project will increase the productivity of crops and livestock by 30%, reaching about 1.3 million farmers and pastoralists using climate services such as index insurance. About 55,000 additional jobs will be created for youth and women,” said Oluyede Ajayi, Africa Program Lead, Food Security and Rural Well Being, Global Centre on Adaptation.

Panelists said the youth must utilize their digital skills to accelerate the transformation of the agricultural sector, which forms the central pillar of Africa’s economy. They urged participants to contribute to solutions that enhance market linkages to promote agribusiness.

“Africa’s significant youth population faces rising unemployment with myriad negative consequences. These challenges are further exacerbated by climate shocks, skill gaps & limited preparedness to address the effects of climate change,” said Andre-Marie Taptue, Principal Economist at the African Development Bank's Jobs for Youth program.

AAAP’s YouthAdapt program promotes sustainable job creation through entrepreneurship in climate adaptation and resilience in Africa by unlocking $3 billion in credit for adaptation action.

Last year, the first set of ten young African entrepreneurs and Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises offering innovative solutions and business ideas that can drive climate change adaptation and resilience were awarded at COP26 in Glasgow. This year the Africa Youth Adaptation Competition 20 enterprises across Africa will each receive up to $100,000 in addition to mentorship and coaching to support their climate change adaptation innovation.

Panelists included Claude Migisha from the African Development Bank, Dr. Fleur Wouterse, and Aramide Abe from the Global Center of Adaptation. They shared their views on how AAAP was shaping and adding value to the Bank Digital Agriculture Flagship program, ways to accelerate investor engagement in agriculture adaptation, and how the YouthADAPT was moving the needle on entrepreneurship, unlocking finance and job creation.

Gislaine Matiedje Nkenmayi from Mumita Holdings, a recipient of the 2021 YouthADAPT Challenge award, shared her experience on how the $100,000 grant transformed her enterprise.

“With the grant, we were able to reach out to more than 10 cooperatives with a total of 257 smallholder farmers, to whom we offer free advisory services, low-cost greenhouses and solar-powered irrigation systems. We have been able to expand production from 100kg to 1000kg of fresh vegetables weekly,” Nkenmayi said.

In her concluding remarks, Edith Ofwona Adera, Principal Regional Climate Change Officer and AAAP coordinator at the Bank stressed the need to strengthen adaptation and resilience measures and expedite mainstreaming climate adaptation for transformation at scale. She called for the engagement of the private sector, given the role they can play in adapting to climate change, financing adaptation, and supporting others through products and services for resilience.