World Food Day- An African Climate Opportunity Perspective

Today is #worldfoodday2022, coming at the backdrop of a world on red alert, and African economies are being battered from all directions- from the cyclone of war to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 earthquake. This distress has fomented record inflation of up to 12.2% across Africa and 30-40% higher food prices.

On top of all these, there is the elephant in the room which is the escalating climate change which has not relented and has seen the productive output of each African reduced by 5 – 15% ?yearly.

As we celebrate #worldfoodday2022, we must remember that we can neither duplicate nor do without nature. The focus must be on leveraging #naturebasedsolutions and #valueaddition solutions to producers using the #EBA approach to enable them to add value and drive #climateaction. The solutions to food insecurity lie in connecting the dots. #cleanenergy for #valueaddition will convert $48 billion in losses to enterprise opportunities for #youth. The first step is #skillsretooling, adapting skills for solutions accessible to the millions of informal sector actors. This is what we have leveraged and do through the UN Environment Programme The Ecosystems Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA) #innovativevolunteerism incubation space where we have seen how the power of simple #climate action solutions of #solardryers have proven able to dry produce effectively to below 12% moisture thresholds helping households to save food, increase their incomes as jobs are created for the youth in communities.

#COP27 starts 21 days from today, and we must know that the “true north” of #climateaction in #Africa centres on #socioeconomics, which is the lens to consider #adaptation and #mitigation. First, the poor are disproportionately vulnerable to #climatechange because they lack the resources to buffer themselves and quickly rebound from its effects. As a typical example, while the west experiences Category 5 cyclones regularly these days, they do not share the level of damage we see in Africa, as was the case during cyclone Idai & Kenneth in Southern Africa. This, then, is to say that putting in place #adaptation measures alone, such as early warning weather systems, to provide communities with prior warnings of impending disasters if these communities cannot afford alternative places to move to & alternative livelihoods as well afford risk mitigation measures like insurance. The impact of these early warning systems will still fall short as the community cannot effectively act upon the information they give.

Clear investment policies & trajectories of where monies can be invested to maximise socio-economic returns in #foodsecurity and jobs for #youth competitive enterprises are urgently needed. The impact of adaptation measures will still fall short. For example, Africa already contributes up to 20% of its adaptation needs each year which amounts to $ 3 billion. This money needs to be invested in solutions that unlock economic & financial dividends. Therefore, Africa cannot look at adaptation or loss and damage or mitigation as stand-alone but rather in complementarity towards unlocking tangible socio-economic & financial tips.

?Second, the essence of #justtransitions is about equity & justice.

Africa’s economies are not yet locked up in high emissions development models. This represents an opportunity to take leadership in the #lowemissionsdevelopment pathway with minimal transition costs and leapfrog into low emissions pathways, as the region did with leapfrogging landlines onto mobile telephony. It is estimated that a move to low-carbon, greener economies can create 60 million jobs by 2030, and #Africa needs to tap these socio-economic opportunities leveraging its minimal transition costs urgently.

?For example, in energy, it is projected that energy de-carbonisation globally in line with an average 20C world scenario will result in net energy savings of USD 71trillion by 2050. Africa should not be left out of this benefit. At the moment, up to 620million Africans lack access to energy. 84% of energy-poor in #Africa are in rural areas; bridging the gap most effectively calls for using off-grid solutions that are accessible and efficient in electrifying rural Africa. In addition, efforts should leverage the most accessible renewable energy resources in which Africa holds the highest comparative advantage globally.

#justtransition #justenergytransition #opportunity #renewableenergy