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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Many impoverished African countries are grappling with the severe impacts of climate change, including prolonged droughts, extreme heat, and arid land, along with unpredictable rainfall and devastating floods. These challenges exacerbate conflicts and disrupt livelihoods, particularly for those dependent on agriculture, a sector increasingly vulnerable in a warming world.
Experts point out that climate-related vulnerabilities are at the core of issues faced by conflict-prone nations in Africa’s Sahel region, such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and northern Nigeria. Adapting to these challenges could require up to $50 billion annually, as estimated by the Global Commission on Adaptation. Additionally, the International Energy Agency suggests that the transition to clean energy could cost as much as $190 billion each year, an overwhelming financial burden for African nations.
African leaders argue that countries have limited fiscal space, and further borrowing to finance climate goals would exacerbate their already substantial debt burdens. Consequently, they are urging for an urgent increase in financing.
Some leaders have suggested that this week’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Marrakech, Morocco, could serve as an opportune platform to initiate discussions on Africa’s financial challenges and its ability to address climate shocks.
Criticism has arisen that international lending institutions have not sufficiently considered climate change and the vulnerabilities of impoverished countries in their funding decisions.
In a New York Times opinion column, Kenyan President William Ruto, African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki, and Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Commission on Adaptation, decried the global financial system as “outdated, dysfunctional, and unjust.” They highlighted that international financial institutions are inadequately sized and limited in fulfilling their mandate, too slow in responding to new challenges like climate change, and discriminatory against poor countries.
In recent years, climate funding to Africa has increased, recognizing that the continent is the least responsible for emissions but the most vulnerable to climate change due to insufficient financing and capacity to cope. Major development banks have increasingly acknowledged climate change as an economic threat.
During a panel discussion in Marrakech this week, IMF economist Daniel Lee indicated that the organization is “mainstreaming climate change in policy advice, capacity development, and lending.” However, he did not provide specific details regarding the size or distribution of funding.
Lee pointed out an IMF program initiated last year to assist poor countries in addressing issues such as climate change. To date, only one African country, Rwanda, has received financing from the program amounting to $319 million over three years.
Experts and African leaders argue that climate financing for the continent has been inadequate and particularly challenging to access for Sahel countries that lack stable and recognized governments, with many of them led by military juntas.
Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, noted, “The reality has fallen short of expectations. A significant portion of funding goes toward mitigation efforts, while adaptation, a top priority for the continent, receives less attention and support.”
In regions like Niger, where the leader was ousted in a coup in August, and northern Nigeria, thousands of hectares of arable land are being lost due to soil erosion and dry conditions. This has led to conflicts among farmers and livestock herders competing for resources, reducing economic opportunities and aiding armed group recruitment.
Irrigation projects are one way to adapt to climate change, but the ongoing violence undermines these efforts, making it difficult for farmers to access their farmland.
Femi Mimiko, a professor of political economy and international relations at Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University, criticized the level of climate financing heading to Africa as “rather negligible” and emphasized the enormous challenges due to the strict conditions for accessing IMF and World Bank funding.
Additionally, climate financing for Africa must address the persistent debt crises in many countries, according to Lopes.
The African leaders underscored in their column that Africa’s debt repayments are estimated to reach $62 billion this year, surpassing the continent’s costs of adapting to climate change. They reiterated a call made at the Africa Climate Summit in Kenya last month for a suspension of foreign debt repayments.
Another issue is the underestimation by leaders of how climate change contributes to violence and economic problems.
Idayat Hassan, a senior Africa program fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, emphasized the need for national policies to address climate change and its nexus with conflict. “Little or no focus is on climate change, and the connection between climate change and conflict in the Sahel is underappreciated,” Hassan said. She called for prioritizing climate change as the root cause of the problems affecting these countries.
In countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all under military juntas, 16 million people require humanitarian assistance, marking a 172% increase since 2016. Over 5 million people are experiencing high levels of food insecurity, according to the International Rescue Committee.
The humanitarian group attributes conflict and climate change to “driving an ever-deeper crisis” that affects agriculture, the primary source of livelihood for most of the population in these countries.
Mimiko noted that the legitimacy of governments affects their capacity to meet the requirements set by the IMF and the World Bank
