Beset by frequent drought, unpredictable rainfall, degraded soils, pests, disease and conflict attributed to climate change, African farmers are struggling to engage in steady supply of crops and livestock for consumption and sale. This has prompted increased advocacy for the implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) to meet the growing demand for food for Nigeria and the rest of Africa’s increasing population. More than $100 billion is available from the World Bank and other donors to fund climate smart agriculture in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. To take advantage of funding, African Ministers of Agriculture are seeking ways to improve financing for climate smart agriculture, DANIEL ESSIET writes.
In Africa, more than 70 per cent of the people who work in the agricultural sector are smallholders. This makes agriculture the most important sector of activity.
As such, agriculture is a fundamental instrument for sustainable development of sub-Saharan African countries to sustain local livelihoods and ecosystems. This notwithstanding, from Nigeria to Zimbabwe, farmers struggle to produce a steady supply of crops and livestock for consumption and sale following increased challenges to achieving food security. One of them is global warming that has caused extreme weather events including heat waves, droughts and floods, which are currently more frequent and more intense.
In some countries such as Mali and Ethiopia, climatic reality including poor or erratic rainfall, long dry spells and floods, has led to reduced incomes of households, worsening food insecurity, nutrition and employment. As a result, growing seasons and agro-ecological zones are shifting more and more.
The challenges are major concerns. More of this is expected in the coming years as climate change impact on people in sub-Saharan Africa. According to experts, if left unchecked, the situation will reduce the availability, access, and utilisation of safe and nutritious food.
Such risks, experts said, make agriculture unattractive for investors who struggle to unlock financing to support agribusinesses.
Climate change challenges
The devastating effects of climate change from longer periods of drought to increased frequency, duration and intensity of tropical storms, are being felt around Africa with an intensity that underscores the immediate need for concerted efforts.
Barring action on a sweeping scale, climate change will accelerate the danger of severe food shortages. As a warming atmosphere intensifies Africa’s droughts, flooding, heat waves, wildfires and other weather patterns, it is speeding up the rate of soil loss and land degradation.
CSA to rescue
Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an initiative that aims to enhance the capacity of the agricultural systems to support food security, incorporating the need for adaptation and the potential for mitigation into sustainable agriculture development strategies. It proposes more integrated approaches to the closely linked challenges of food security, development and climate change adaptation/mitigation, to enable countries to identify options with maximum benefits and those where trade-offs need management.
To this end, the Adaptation of African Agriculture to climate change (AAA) Initiative gathered Ministers and representatives of African governments, key financial and technical institutions, donors, private sector, universities and scientists at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University of Benguerir, Morocco to seek ways to improve financing for climate smart agriculture.
The event organised under the theme: “Food Security Facing Climate Change”, brought together representatives of key financial institutions, donors, the private sector and scientific researchers to discuss ways of adapting African agriculture to climate change. It was organised by the AAA in partnerships with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and OCP Group.
AAA so far boasts of the support and contribution of 35 African countries, more than half of the continent’s 54 states. The AAA Initiative aims to provide an innovative and concrete response to the challenges raised by climate change in Africa by mobilising international knowledge and intellectual and financial resources. The first day of the conference was devoted to the Scientific Day, during which leading international experts and scientists discussed Africa’s food security challenges related to climate change, while the Donors Roundtable discussed ways to mobilise funds.
Speaking during the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammed Sabo Nanono, said Nigeria was taking steps to address the impact of climate change on production in the face of increasing demand for healthy and nutritious food. In line with this, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has implemented Agriculture Climate Smart Agriculture Investment Profile (CSAIP). The key highlights of the profile include a number of mitigation measures such as improved soils and nutrient management, use of alternative domestic fuel in rural areas, and creating fixed grazing systems or dedicated pastures, among others.
These activities, he continued, have promoted CSA as a feasible and comprehensive approach to ensure agricultural productivity, adapt to climate change and achieve mitigation targets. Added to this, he said, the Federal Government is promoting research, technology and policy approach to agriculture adapting to climate change, practices and sharing experiences. This, according to him, would contribute to successful implementation of the scheme on greenhouse emission.
Notwithstanding Nigeria’s efforts to promote adaptation of agriculture, the minister stressed that there was the need for regional and international collaborations and partnerships. He said: “Nigeria is interested in Lake Chad Basin development, agro-allied industry development and trade in partnership with her neighbouring countries. This would not only enhance sustainability but also improve living standards of the people which are important for resilience, peace and security.”
He reiterated that Nigeria would continue to support the activities and programmes of the AAA initiative with respect to ensuring food security in the face of the climate change. “Our commitment to this initiative is informed by Africa’s increasing population and high unemployment which must be addressed through regional and international collaboration.”
The minister said the adoption of CSA in Africa will improve the productivity and quality of agriculture, increase farmers’ incomes and reduce their vulnerability to adverse climatic phenomena.
Why climate-smart agriculture?
More than 200 key players from the public and private sectors gathered at the second annual ministerial conference of AAA initiative to tackle food insecurity and climate change in Africa.
In his opening speech, Morocco’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests and President AAA Initiative Foundation, Aziz Akhannouch, said in Africa, global warming is happening faster and the consequences include land degradation and desertification.
The challenge, according to him, is to build the resilience of vulnerable communities and deliver timely assistance when they need support. He called on African leaders to prepare for climate change. He said climate smart agriculture must be integrated into key planning processes so it can receive financial support.
AAA Foundation Secretary General, Seyni Alfa Nafo, said the continent faces a number of challenges related to the conceptual understanding, practice, policy environment and financing of CSA. He said the initiative was designed to help link climate financing with food security through priority projects, allowing for better appreciation of Africa’s natural resources in a sustainable manner.
According to him, the initiative promotes the implementation of tangible projects on soil management, agricultural water management, and climate risk management.
Former Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, said climate change is one of the greatest threats to agriculture and by extension one of the greatest threats to African economies. According to him, the World Bank also reports that 75 per cent of the world’s poor are rural, with most involved in agriculture.
Consequently, agricultural performance is fundamental in poverty reduction, food security and economic growth contributors such as employment. The dependence of the important sector on specific climate conditions, he continued, renders it a climate vulnerable sector. He added that climate-smart agriculture is seen as the solution to transforming agriculture by adopting farming practices and techniques that address the threats of climate change and make agriculture more resilient to it.
He called on African leaders to promote climate-smart agricultural initiatives to combat the effects of climate change that affect agricultural productivity.
Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Dr. Abdel Moneim El-Banna, said the agricultural sector is facing a number of challenges such as the impacts of climate change, water and land scarcity, high levels of urbanisation and an increasing demand for healthy and nutritious food. He said the constraints placed on Egypt’s land and water resources by changing climate forced the government to look at solutions to make the country’s agricultural sector rigorously efficient.
He added that the Egyptian leadership adopted the 2030 Sustainable Agricultural Development Strategy, incorporating Egypt’s 2030 vision to achieve a competitive, balanced, and diversified economy, social justice, and improved livelihoods for the Egyptian people.
The Director-General, AAA, Mrs Abir Lemseffer, said the conference was organised to help further drive the momentum of increasing engagement in tackling the climate challenge. The initiative, according to her, also seeks to restore African ecosystem balance and enable countries of the continent to have access to climate funds.
She said conference aims to support sustained efforts to ensure food security in Africa against a backdrop of accelerating climate change by mobilising international financial resources. She said AAA has been based on a solid scientific platform with several centres globally which are all contributing and each time they are working with a country.
She said they have experts from all over the world, adding that they try to find the techniques within each country which best suits its climate change challenges. She said the initiative is engaging the funders/investors to find innovative ways/innovative project re-engineering. AAA, she noted, is working in seven countries. She said the initiative have concluded work in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire where they have built a climate investment plan which they can present for financing.
In addition, she said the initiative is working with Congo, Cameroun, Ghana and Burkina Faso governments to build capacity building on agriculture techniques. These involved structuring a strategy, using the right terminologies and how to do presentations.
The Commissioner, Department for Agriculture and Rural Economy, African Union, Hon. Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, said the continent’s agriculture is vulnerable to climate change. She noted that the region suffers from recurring risks to food production and without adequate measures to adapt.
Under a changing climate, she said the risk to food security in Africa would be extremely severe, with limited potential for reducing risk through adaptation. She said AU is mobilising the continent’s leaders on the need for climate action to become a high priority in the development agenda of all African States.
The Chief Executive, OCP Africa, Karim Senhadji, said Africa’s key option for achieving food security, poverty reduction, employment creation, and overall socioeconomic development lies in the transformation and improvement of its agricultural sector. For smallholder farmers to remain in agriculture, he said interventions requiring climate-smart water management technologies and practices need to be put in place at various spatial scales.
According to him, OCP is working on analysing local soils and providing local farmers with fertiliser and agricultural products adapted to each type of soil. He said OCP hopes to promote an agriculture that is more productive, but also takes into account ecological diversities.
The Côte d’Ivoire Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Mamadou Sangafowa Coulibaly, said his country is implementing adaptation measures to address the vulnerability of rural households’ dependence on agriculture and livestock as a source of livelihood.
Challenges
In many African countries, the Lesotho Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Mphu Ramatlapeng, said there were no long-term climatic and landscape level data. As a result, decision makers lack knowledge of current and future projected effects of climate change and the implications for agricultural practices, food security and natural resource management.
Ramatlapeng said lack of information, limited human and institutional capacity as well as lack of research-based evidence, impedes the ability of decision makers to implement adequate financing plans for CSA.
Nafo said while there is high-level support for CSA, adoption remains low, largely due to lack of knowledge on practices and economic costs among other barriers. According to him, AAI is working on guides to provide the much needed evidence for guiding investors interested in CSA. The initiative, he continued, would help ensure climate-friendly food security, through provision of technical assistance.
Attracting business to CSA
More than $100 billion is available from the World Bank and other donors to fund climate smart agriculture in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
The Morocco Minister of Agriculture stressed the need to reduce risks for the investors. He said agriculture is a risky business due to dangers such as uncertain weather and poor rural infrastructure.
He noted that de-risking is critical for unlocking agricultural finance by allowing investors, project developers and governments to reduce the possibilities of negative or unsatisfactory outcomes.
By using science to guide investment decisions in climate-smart agriculture, he said ministers can de-risk farming to help promote the much-needed investment in African agriculture. Nafo said the initiative has conducted a series of analyses of investment barriers and possible policy intervention to increase the investment attractiveness of CSA.
Green bond, adaptation funds
Since 2010, the Adaptation Fund Board has committed about $720 million for climate change adaptation and resilience projects and programmes, including 100 concrete localised adaptation projects in the most vulnerable communities of developing countries around the world with more than six million direct beneficiaries. It also pioneered direct access, empowering countries to access funding and develop projects directly through accredited national implementing entities.
The World Bank has raised more than $13 billion through almost 150 green bonds in 20 currencies for institutional and retail investors all over the globe. At the end of the fiscal year 2018, there were 91 eligible projects and a total of$15.4 billion in commitments. Of these commitments, $8.5 billion in Green Bond proceeds were allocated and disbursed to support projects in 28 countries and another $6.8 billion had yet to be disbursed.
Together, these sectors made up approximately 69 percent of the Green Bond commitments. World Bank alone issues $50 billion every year in Sustainable Development Bonds for its development lending.
The World Bank Group (WBG) is currently scaling up climate-smart agriculture. In its Climate Change Action Plan, the World Bank committed to working with countries to deliver climate-smart agriculture that achieves the triple win of increased productivity, enhanced resilience, and reduced emissions.
World Bank Country Director for Morocco, Jesko Hentschel, said WBG has initiated several projects to identify opportunities to improve climate finance to support agriculture and smallholder farmers. He said there were case studies to identify emerging opportunities from the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other policies and frameworks that could support climatic actions and finance for agriculture.
Looking at the large number of recent reports from the IPCC, and in particular the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), Hentschel observed that the global community is finally beginning to pay due attention. He said: “AAA and the Moroccan government had already seen this when they hosted the ‘adaptation’ COP22 in Marrakech, and the mandate of AAA has never been more critical.”
He noted, however, that climate-smart investments into agriculture continue to fall well short of the financing gap estimated at $210 billion per year globally. “We are currently working with AAA on the roll out of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIPs) series and to date with 11 countries across Africa.
“If we take currently ongoing investments and those in our pipeline together, we are very proud to share with you that we are financing over $2 billion in projects across Africa that are in support of AAA objectives as described in the priority investments identified or being identified under CSAIPs, “ Hentschel said.
The World Bank expressed its readiness to accompany the efforts by investing $2 billion in smart-agriculture in 11 of the AAA countries across Africa.
The Director, Division of Country Programming, Green Climate Fund, Pa Ousman Jarju, said climate-smart agriculture is more than adaptation and mitigation. He said it was also about increasing the efficiency of resources and adapting new technologies to eradicate food insecurity and poverty among farmers.
The Executive Director, Wholesale Banking, Bank of Agriculture, Olabode Abikoye, said the bank is deploying different products to meet farmers’ challenges. According to him, productive, efficient agriculture is a strong foundation for economic development but the sector faces an unpredictable future due to climate change.
Abikoye said the bank was partnering OCP Africa to give farmers new technologies with the potential to transform agricultural production.
AAA initiative
AAA is an initiative for Africa and Africans from Africa. It was launched during the United Nations’ COP22 held in Marrakesh, Morocco in November 2016. It was adopted by the African Union as being the voice of the adaptation of the African agriculture.
In the Marrakesh Declaration, participants unanimously declared their commitment to support the AAA initiative to help African agriculture adapt to climate change. Several milestones have been successfully reached to give more vissibility to the AAA Initiative, to help African countries to implement their nationally determined contributions (NDC) and to strengthen the capacity building of African policy makers and project holders.
Since January 2019, the AAA initiative is held by a foundation, under the impetus of His Majesty the King Mohammed VI, with the mandate of implementing the objectives of the AAA Initiative and also of providing assistance, advice, capacity building and technical support to decision makers, local institutions, project holders and farmers in Africa. Since then, the Foundation has sought to contribute to food security, improve the living conditions of vulnerable farmers and promote employment in rural areas by encouraging climate change adaptation practices and channeling financial flows towards the most vulnerable farmers.
As a key driver of growth in Africa, Chief Executive Officer, African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, Michelle Kathryn Essomé, said the continent’s private equity ecosystem has a tremendous opportunity to contribute to the achievement of the Paris Agreement and be a leader in the global fight against climate change. According to her, sectors such as renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture or climate-resilient infrastructure all constitute highly attractive opportunities in Africa.
She said the $850 million recently raised by emerging markets renewables investor – Climate Fund Managers – above and beyond an initial target of $530 million – is a testament to the attention climate-smart investors are attracting.
She said institutional investors are increasingly asking fund managers to pay close attention to climate change at all stages of decision-making, from the investment process through to operations and management.
She added that there is a growing global momentum for monitoring, reporting and disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities, with over 500 organisations having signed up to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures’ recommendations.
From 2020, she continued that the 2,300 members of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment – who collectively represent some $80 trillion in assets – will incorporate two key indicators from the task force into their reporting frameworks.
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