AAAP in the Media
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8
Global Center on Adaptation, AfDB host regional forum on the future of resilient food systems in Africa
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) in collaboration with the African Development Bank and the Wangari Mathai Institute have concluded a three-day regional forum on the future of resilient food systems in Africa.
The Forum, called the Future of Resilient Food Systems in Africa – AAAP Digital Solutions for a Changing Climate provided training aimed at strengthening the capacity of stakeholders from across Eastern Africa to design and implement solutions to improve food security and climate resilience and to facilitate knowledge sharing among farmers on approaches to scale up the use of Digital climate-informed advisory services, or DCAS.
Digital climate-informed advisory services are tools and platforms that integrate climate information into agricultural decision-making. These services range from digital mobile apps, radio, and online platforms to digitally enabled printed bulletins based on climate models and extension services that utilize climate information platforms.
DCAS offers crucial opportunities to build the resilience of small-scale producers in the face of worsening climate change impacts. From seasonal forecasts to pest advisories, effectively designed services provide producers with the resources to adapt to climate shocks and plan for new climate conditions.
Globally, more than 300 million small-scale agricultural producers have limited or no access to such services because service provision is still fragmented, unsustainable beyond project cycles, and not reaching the last mile.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the forum, Professor Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of Global Center on Adaptation called for urgent financial support to put Africa on the path of food sovereignty.
“Africa needs urgent support to scale up the implementation of adaptation solutions that are already yielding good results for irrigation, developing drought-resistant seeds, crops and livestock diversification, “ he said.
“Through the African Adaptation Acceleration Programme, AAAP, we are rolling out a $350 million project to build resilience for food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa towards mobilising new digital climate technology for market information, insurance products, financial services that can and must be tailored to smallholder farmers’ needs”, he added.
Speaking on behalf of the African Development Bank’s East Africa Regional Director General, Nnenna Nwabufo, Dr Pascal Sanginga, Regional Sector Manager for Agriculture and Agro-Industries noted that the forum was timely, coming hot on the heels of the recently concluded Dakar 2 Feed Africa-Food Sovereignty and Resilience summit , organised by the African Development Bank.
“The Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) is already contributing to closing Africa’s adaptation gap by supporting African countries to make a transformational shift in their development pathways by putting climate adaptation and resilience at the center of their policies, programs, and institutions. There is no doubt that AAAP will be a strong component of the Country Food and Agricultural Delivery Compacts to accelerate the transformation of Africa’s food systems and build a more resilient Africa”, he said.
Professor Stephen Kiama Gitahi, Vice Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, reiterated the relevance of the forum pointing out that 70% of the population in Eastern Africa live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. He encouraged the trainers to simplify the modules in a manner that removes the fear for technology and accelerate adaptation for rural farmers. Citing the legacy of late Professor Wangari Maathai he stated:
“We acknowledge that gaps exist on climate adaptation in the rural communities and those can be smartly bridged with the use of digital smart agriculture and climate innovations to create great conservation impact in our region.”
The forum brought together stakeholders from ministries of agriculture, related government agencies, public research institutions, farmer organizations, universities and non-profit organizations working on climate adaptation for food security in Eastern Africa. These included participants from Djibouti, Eritrea, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Mauritius, Tanzania, Seychelles, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Kenya.
About Global Center on Adaptation
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization which works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector. Founded in 2018, GCA operates from its headquarters in the largest floating office in the world, located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. GCA has a worldwide network of regional offices in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire; Dhaka, Bangladesh and Beijing, China.
About the Wangari Maathai Institute, University of Nairobi
The Wangari Maathai Institute (WMI) for peace and environmental studies is a global centre for teaching and research on environmental management, governance, peace and conflicts and the nexus between peace and democracy. The centre was founded in 2009 with the support of the Government of Kenya (GoK), the African Union(AU) and the African Development Bank(AfDB) to celebrate and immortalize the work of the late Nobel Laurete
Prof.Wangari Maathai who was a global champion on environmental conservation and governance. The centre trains future leaders and Champions for environment. The Centre is located in the serene environment in Upper Kabete suburb of Nairobi City.
Zanzibar Water Conference
Venue: Hotel Verde, Zanzibar
2023 conference theme: Accelerating Change: Realizing Sustainable Management of Groundwater Resources and Resilient Water Services for All
Sub themes:
- Groundwater Management in a Changing Climate
- Water, Energy, Food Ecosystems, and Environment
- Enhancing Water Supply and Sanitation through Innovative and Climate-Smart Technologies and Infrastructures
- Water Governance and Institutional Strengthening
The conference is organized by the Zanzibar Ministry of Water, Energy and Minerals, Southern African Development Community, Groundwater Management Institute, Global Water Partnership Southern Africa, Tanzania Water Partnership, Hekima Ni Uhuru & IHE Delft Institute for Water Education.
The 2023 Zanzibar Water Conference takes place in Zanzibar on 16-17 August 2023.
AGRF - Africa Food Systems Forum
AGRF- Africa Food Systems Forum
Venue: Julius Nyerere International conference center, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Africa's Food Systems Forum 2023 Summit’s theme, “Recover, Regenerate, Act: Africa’s Solutions to Food Systems Transformation,” focuses on building back better food systems and food sovereignty with youth and women at the center. The theme identifies three steps needed to achieve this transformation: Recovery, Regenerate, and Act.The AGRF is the world’s premier forum for African agriculture, bringing together stakeholders in the agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African agriculture forward.
The Summit aims to:
- Share African innovations to scale up solutions to global food systems challenges, assess progress made in transforming food systems across the continent and globally.
- Review the progress on investments and commitments made through the summit and the agribusiness deal room.
- Renew political commitments to advancing climate-resilient food systems for women and youth.
- Launch the presidential legacy program - Tanzania’s programmatic business model for piloting and scaling food system transformation.
- Mobilize innovative financing instruments such as catalytic funds to support youth and women-led agribusinesses.
AAAP’s Participation
AAAP will hosting a side event titled, ‘Supporting smallholder productivity and resilience through increased access to investment, information, and innovation’ in partnership with Virginia Tech and Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI)
Dodoma city climate stress test
Currently, Africa’s infrastructure needs are around USD 130–170 billion a year, with an investment gap of over 50–60% of that amount. Making Africa’s infrastructure resilient adds only an average of 3% to total costs, but every $1 spent could yield $4 of benefits.
The Africa Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator (Pillar 2 of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP)) focuses on accelerating infrastructure resilience efforts on the continent. It will strengthen the enabling environment and provide the technical support to scale up investment in resilient infrastructure. It will also ensure that new and existing infrastructure uses nature-based solutions and create positive socioeconomic impacts and green jobs. By 2025, Pillar 2 of the AAAP aims to scale up investment at national and city level for climate-resilient infrastructure in key sectors such as water, transport, energy, and waste management, and integrate resilience in up to 50% (by value) of new infrastructure projects.
The City Adaption Accelerators (CAAs) are carrying out Rapid Climate Risk Assessments in target cities, which aim to improve climate adaptation and build resilience in urban areas.
The primary purpose of the RCRAs is to inform the identification and preparation of AfDB projects.
The RCRAs will inform the development of a comprehensive climate adaptation strategy and prioritization plan and are a crucial step towards the development of the CAA for each of the target cities. The overarching objective of the CAA is to create a shared strategic framework for GCA’s engagement in climate adaptation and resilience building in urban areas. The development objective of the CAA is to support cities and countries to strengthen their urban climate adaptation and resilience outcomes through enhanced (1) understanding; (2) planning; (3) investments; and (4) governance and capacity building.
- Outputs will inform future discussions surrounding climate adaptation investments
- GCA is demonstrating its unique value add in its ability to provide technical guidance to firms towards developing well-informed analyses
- Literature review of vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessments of cities to climate change
- Scoping of past and current initiatives and key stakeholders relevant for adaptation and resilience building in cities
- City Scan: rapid review of actions around climate hazard and risk assessments and more locally focused assessments of vulnerability and adaptive capacity
- Rapid Climate Risk Assessment: an overview of the key climate hazards and associated risks; will indicate whether an in-depth climate risk assessment is required
- City Scoping: provides insight into past and current initiatives relevant for adaptation and resilience building and identifies key stakeholders and relevant initiatives
As part of the CAA, the RCRAs will contribute to the following impacts:
- Strengthened urban climate risk management in cities and their hinterlands
- Improved climate adaptive spatial planning at the municipal and regional levels
- Enhanced water resources management for more equitable access to ecosystem benefits
- Enhanced resilience, consistency, inclusiveness and integration of urban drinking water, sanitation and solid waste management services
- Improved urban liveability and public health due to a reduction in climate risks stemming from heat stress and disease
€40,000
Programme for Integrated Development and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Zambezi River Basin (PIDACC Zambezi)
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
The objective of the project is to strengthen regional cooperation in building the resilience of the Zambezi River Basin communities to climatic and economic shocks, through promoting inclusive, transformative investments, job-creation, and ecosystem-based solutions.
- Identified climatic risks to major agricultural value chains and digital technologies that have the potential to accelerate climate adaptation in the Zambezi River Basin
- Prepared national profiles on digital adaptation in agriculture for the various countries of the Zambezi River Basin, a summary of the prevalent adaptation techniques among smallholder farmers, and the key institutional, policy and human capital challenges to digitization
- Actionable design and engagement opportunities, which will mainstream digital climate advisory services into the implementation of the PIDACC program
- Benefit about 800,000 (60% women and 10% youth) within hotspot areas, and indirectly the whole population
- Improved access to water, climate smart agricultural technologies, and community-level infrastructure for irrigation and markets
- Associated benefits include multi-sectoral utilization of shared water resources within the context of integrated land and water resources development and management, gender equality and social inclusion
- Strengthened institutional capacities and mechanisms for coordination of Basin monitoring, planning, and management
- Increased demand-driven community-level feasible climate resilient infrastructure that would support livelihoods
- Reinforced inclusive and diversified climate resilient livelihoods support through enhanced agribusiness and small & medium enterprises (SME) development
- Developed and improved livelihoods, including job creation by enhancing agribusiness through investments in water, sanitation, energy, human capital, and agriculture sectors
- Support adaptive capacity of communities with a view to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and effectively manage water
AfDB Investment of USD16.7 million of total USD19.4 Million
Country Digital Agriculture and Adaptation Profile: Benin, DRC, Malawi and Tanzania
Food production in Africa is largely dominated by smallholder rain-fed agriculture and the sector is therefore particularly vulnerable to climate change and variability. The continent is already experiencing more frequent extreme weather events and higher-than-average temperature increases. According to a recent report by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), the annual cost of adaptation actions is estimated at US$15 billion, while that of non-action is estimated at US$201 billion.
Digitalization offers the opportunity to help farmers adapt to some of the challenges arising from climate change and could lead to in-depth transformation of the agriculture sector. However, the dissemination of digital technology at the farm level risks widening the digital divide that exists for women and marginalized communities. Further, despite the rapid growth of digital technologies on the continent, youth potential as an asset to foster uptake and scale of digital agriculture is not fully exploited. However, in developing countries where wages are lower and farms generally smaller, digital technologies could help to improve management practices and access to markets.
The overall goal is to create a Digital Agriculture and Adaptation Profile (DAP) for the four countries. The study will respond to the question of how digital climate and advisory services (DCAS) can be mainstreamed in implementing the adaptation options and pathways in the National Adaptation Plan, and for the agricultural sector of selected countries. A gender lens will be applied to the studies.
Specifically, the work will include:
- Overview of the agricultural economy of the country, the main value chains, and key challenges facing each of the value chains.
- Analysis of climate vulnerability of major agricultural value chains.
- Evaluation of the landscape of digital agriculture/adaptation (infrastructure, tools, enabling environment, institutions, policies, services).
- Mapping of existing and promising initiatives related to DCAS in the country.
- Identifying key players (public, private, non-profit, international community) across value chains, in digital agriculture and DCAS in the country as well as their roles and solutions.
- Assessing the challenges, barriers and opportunities to the investment, adoption and scaling of DCAS.
- Developing a business case for DAP in relation to investment operations.
- Identifying and prioritizing promising digital climate adaptation solutions that are applicable to help producers in adapting to climate change and in building better resilience across value chains.
- Through the DAP, an assessment of the readiness of the four countries for digital agriculture.
- A holistic review of digital transformation articulated around six topics: the extent of climate challenges and adaptation potentials, digital infrastructure, digital penetration, policy and regulation, business environment, human capital and agro-innovation.
- An opportunity for investment banks to make informed decisions in the planning of ongoing and future projects.
- Developing a DAP can help to identify how to best harness the digital-agriculture-adaptation nexus to facilitate decision-making.
- The results will be used by countries and their partners in implementing DCAS (short-, medium- and long-term investments).
- In supporting the development of DAP, GCA is working with partners to plug the gaps in the information needed to provide contextual understanding of background issues, and to ensure that investments in climate adaptation projects are designed and founded on sound and robust information that provide adequate context of focal/selected countries.
Technical Assistance
AAAP webinar: Innovation essential for climate-smart future, but it's not enough
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.
Building resilience for food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa (BREFONS)
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.
Through building resilience to climate change, the overall objective of this program is to increasing, on a sustainable and resilient basis, productivity and agro-sylvo-pastoral production in the HOA, increase incomes from agro-sylvo-pastoral value chains and enhance the adaptive capacity of the populations to prepare for and manage climate change risks.
- Provide upstream technical assistance to ensure climate smart digital technologies for adaptation and resilience are integrated into the project.
- Identifying key agriculture adaptation constraints that can be addressed by digital technologies and develop solutions
- Assessing the conditions and opportunities for digital applications for drought index insurance
- Identifying opportunities for digital agricultural adaptation solutions through the preparing of climate risk and digital agriculture profiles
- Supporting stakeholders to identify and implement opportunities through the preparation of a digital agricultural adaptation toolkit
- Building the capacity of policymakers and enable policy interventions to ensure uptake of digital solutions using the toolkit.
- Feasibility studies and assessment on building resilience for food security in Africa;
- Feasibility studies to assess integration of adaptation and mitigation measures for the sustainability of nutrition and food security interventions;
- Quality assurance and advisory services for results and evidence-based planning, management and M&E of the Youth Enterprise Development project interventions
The programme will contribute to improving living conditions, including for women and the youth; improving food and nutrition security; increasing resilience; and peace and security in the HOA. Specifically it will:
- Productivity (crops and livestock) increased by 30%
- 50% increase in digital literacy for actors across value chains, of which 80% are women and youth
- 30% de-risked credit as a result of use of Digital Climate Advisory Services and Digital Financial Services
- 30% increase in use of index insurance products by smallholders across target value chains
- 55,000 additional jobs created (primarily for women and youth)
- 1.3 million farmers and pastoralists in the six countries use climate services (e.g. index insurance with a gender focus), allowing them to benefit from:
- Increased productivity and agro-sylvo-pastoral production in the Horn of Africa, on a sustainable and resilient basis
- Increased incomes (by 40%) from agro-sylvo-pastoral value chains
- More broadly, the population of the Horn of Africa have enhanced adaptive capacity to better prepare for and manage climate change risks and variation.
USD 210 million