ADF Approves $14m For Climate-Smart Villages, Data Systems

The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a $14.64m grant to scale up climate resilience initiatives across the Sahel, with a strong emphasis on expanding climate-smart agriculture and strengthening regional climate data systems.

Approved in Abidjan, the funding supports Project 2 of the Programme to Strengthen Resilience to Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2-P2RS).

The grant is issued under the Climate Action Window, the African Development Bank Group’s dedicated climate finance mechanism for its concessional window.

According to the Bank, the new financing aims to boost the adaptive capacity of communities facing worsening climate extremes through a dual approach: expanding climate-smart villages and improving climate information access for decision-making.

Under the project, the ADF will fund the creation of 60 climate-smart villages across 30 municipalities in Sahelian countries.

These villages will be built around hydro-agricultural infrastructure and designed to demonstrate resilient farming practices that withstand drought, flooding and temperature shocks.

The grant will also strengthen the regional seed system by disseminating resilient, high-yield seed varieties.

Planned interventions include updating the Regional Catalogue of Species and Varieties, establishing a business-to-business networking portal, and enhancing seed production capacities within national agricultural research institutions and private seed companies. Women and youth are expected to benefit from targeted capacity-building programmes aimed at increasing their participation in climate-resilient agricultural value chains.

A major component of the package focuses on modernising climate data collection and loss-and-damage monitoring.

The project will enhance real-time data availability through improved observation networks and establish an integrated digital platform for data gathering, management and dissemination.

It will also support the development of a regional system for standardised loss and damage reporting, enabling countries to track climate impacts more efficiently.

Overall, the initiative seeks to strengthen community resilience, improve food and nutrition security, and equip Sahelian countries with the tools needed to respond to fast-evolving climate risks.