Climate Finance as a Catalyst for Initiating an African Green Revolution to Enhance Drought Resilience: Policy Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

Despite having contributed relatively little to the problem of climate change, developing countries are projected to bear approximately four-fifths of the costs caused by a 2 C increase in average global temperatures. The Asian Green Revolution presented a blueprint of how new technologies can enhance rural production systems in the face of rapid population growth and changes in weather hazards. Despite this knowledge, Africa has failed to initiate a successful African Green Revolution, thereby making it plausible that African rural production systems can also potentially fail to adapt to new technologies and practices for effectively reducing their vulnerability to droughts. This chapter presents an analysis of aspects that constrained Africa’s Green Revolution so as to provide planning and policy advice on the processes that can enable climate finance resources to strengthen African food systems against droughts. The chapter shows that climate finance mechanisms can reduce agriculture adaptation financing gaps. However, the experiences from soya bean cultivation in Mozambique suggest that small commercial farms contribute to local value chains at many levels and have the potential to embrace technical change; hence they need more support than smallholder farmers for adaptation strategies to ensure food security and poverty reduction.