As climate change impacts accelerate globally, adaptation efforts have become an urgent imperative. This is especially true in the most vulnerable regions, including Africa. A low carbon, climate resilient development pathway offers an unparalleled investment opportunity in Africa with a triple dividend of avoided losses, positive economic gains, and enhanced social and environmental benefits. 

Tracking adaptation finance globally, and specifically in Africa, is critically important to identify trends, uncover gaps, and set concrete priorities for effective finance flows. In the context of the Africa Climate Summit, this policy brief highlights the need to dramatically increase the amount and efficacy of adaptation financing to Africa. This brief also spotlights the persistent challenges related to adaptation finance flows in Africa, and highlights priority actions for the global finance community to undertake to address them. 

A full report with further analysis will be published ahead of COP28. This report will provide the latest analysis on the adaptation funding gap, including: additional sectoral gap analysis; updated 2021-22 adaptation finance flows tracking globally and in Africa; a more comprehensive mapping of adaptation finance pledges and commitments; greater depth of analysis regarding deployment of financial instruments in practice for adaptation; and a mapping of the intersection between adaptation finance and humanitarian assistance for climate emergencies and post-reconstruction funding.  

This brief was co-authored by Climate Policy Initiative with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). Read the full content here.

Read our previous report with GCA on Financial Innovation for Climate Adaptation in Africa here.