Africa’s First Farm Adaptation Assessment Calls for Finance and Policy to Work Together

A continent-wide assessment prepared by the AAA Initiative Foundation with FAO identifies at least $80 billion in agricultural adaptation needs within African national climate plans, while cautioning that the sector’s full costs are not separately recorded. Its call to connect planning, policy and finance shifts attention to a practical challenge: how governments can turn stated priorities into investments that protect agrifood systems from climate shocks.

African countries have identified at least $80 billion in agricultural climate adaptation needs within their national plans, according to an assessment presented at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The report calls for increased financing and stronger support to prepare projects, putting the connection between national commitments and practical investment at the centre of Africa's agricultural adaptation agenda.

Prepared by the AAA Initiative Foundation in partnership with FAO, The State of African Agricultural Adaptation, 2016–2026: Assessment and Roadmap to 2036 examines a challenge that extends beyond estimating costs. Governments have already outlined what adaptation requires. The next task is to connect those plans with policies, financing and the institutional capacity needed to implement them.

The assessment was presented at an event marking ten years of the Initiative for the Adaptation of African Agriculture, launched at COP22 in Marrakech in 2016. With agrifood systems under pressure from hotter, drier and less predictable conditions, its recommendations direct attention towards how climate priorities become investments capable of supporting farmers and the wider food economy.

A Large Adaptation Bill, an Incomplete Agricultural Picture

The assessment finds that 46 of the 53 African countries covered have estimated combined adaptation needs of $566 billion over the periods covered by their national plans, averaging around $56 billion annually. These are adaptation requirements across sectors. Reading them as an agricultural financing bill would obscure both the scope of the assessment and the difficulty of isolating farming's needs.

Agriculture accounts for at least $80 billion of the total, but the report treats that figure as a minimum because 22 countries include agricultural adaptation within broader cost estimates. Some agricultural requirements are therefore embedded in national totals without being separately identifiable. The figure establishes a starting point for understanding the sector's needs, rather than a complete account of them.

The estimates also cannot establish the unfunded shortfall without comparable figures for resources already secured. A clearer financial picture would distinguish identified needs, committed funding and money actually disbursed over matching periods. Such distinctions affect the decisions governments and financing partners must make: where additional resources are required, which priorities are already supported and which remain without a financing route.

Project Preparation Is Part of the Financing Challenge

The report's emphasis on investment-ready projects addresses a practical weakness that a larger funding target alone cannot resolve. A national plan can identify priorities without providing all the detail needed for a financing decision. Moving between those stages requires preparation and sustained capacity support, which the assessment places alongside its call for increased finance.

FAO is expanding support to help countries integrate agrifood solutions into adaptation planning and connect climate action with investment, including through a new project supporting resilient, inclusive and low-emission agrifood systems. The FAO-hosted Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation Partnership also helps strengthen capacity, identify financial solutions and improve access to agrifood finance. These efforts describe the support being offered; their effectiveness will depend on subsequent delivery.

The allocation of preparation support could influence which priorities advance. If financing decisions depend on the maturity of proposals, countries or implementing bodies with limited preparation capacity could struggle to secure support even when their needs are substantial. The policy question is whether assistance helps address that constraint and enables national priorities to become proposals that funders can assess.

Existing Institutions Must Carry the Delivery Burden

The assessment proposes delivering continental support through existing institutions, without establishing a new institution or fund. This approach could limit additional administrative structures, but it also places responsibility on the organisations already operating. Its success would depend on their resources, division of responsibilities and ability to connect national planning processes with financing opportunities.

Coordination is particularly significant because adaptation planning, agricultural policy and financing must work towards compatible priorities. Stronger project preparation would have limited value if proposals remained disconnected from the policies needed to implement them. Equally, more detailed national plans would offer little assurance of progress without identifiable organisations responsible for carrying priorities through to funded activities.

Farmers and other people working across agrifood systems are the intended beneficiaries, yet aggregate financial requirements reveal little about how support would be distributed. Decisions over which communities, activities and locations receive investment would shape the practical value of the response. Whether local priorities influence project selection, and whether financing terms are workable for recipients, remain essential questions for implementation.

The Road to 2036 Needs Measurable Milestones

The event also emphasised continuity across successive UN climate conferences, connecting the initiative's origins under Morocco's COP22 presidency with the developing agrifood agenda at future COPs. Sustained diplomatic attention could help maintain agriculture's place in climate discussions. Its practical significance, however, will depend on whether that attention supports decisions on financing, institutional responsibilities and implementation.

Progress would be easier to assess through a sequence of observable results: projects prepared, finance committed, funds disbursed and activities implemented against national priorities. Clearer agricultural cost estimates would strengthen that assessment by making needs more visible within broader adaptation budgets. Reporting on recipients and outcomes would then help establish whether financial activity translates into greater resilience.

A major question for the roadmap towards 2036 will be whether mobilised resources translate into reduced vulnerability. Project approvals and disbursements can demonstrate movement, but evaluating their benefits requires evidence from the people and food systems they are intended to support. Africa's adaptation plans have given policymakers a substantial statement of need; the next stage must make delivery equally visible.