Marking of 2014 as the year of Agriculture and Food Security coincides with the release of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) which strongly predicts extreme climate events such as drought and floods. These impacts will increase vulnerability of Africa’s economies that depend on agriculture. The report will no doubt clearly illustrated the intricate linkage between climate change, agriculture and water, and the need for Africa to understand this link in order to formulate appropriate responses to climate change and develop programmes that build resilience to impacts of climate change and avoid derailment of the growth trajectory Africa enjoys today.
Coupling with this, is the challenge to produce enough food to satisfy an increasing population and ensure food security, which is one of the key objectives of Africa’s transformative development that cannot be achieved without sufficient and reliable energy to drive this transformation. For example, in the face of climate change, increased agricultural performance will demand energy to drive transformation across the agricultural value chain. The UN Climate Summit 2014 provides a great opportunity for stakeholders from Africa to assemble for deliberations that will bring to the fore Africa’s particular challenges and opportunities presented by climate change interventions.
It is in this context that The Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa), a partnership of The Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) through its African Climate Policy Center (ACPC), African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), is organizing a climate change side event at the UN Climate Summit 2014. The theme of the event will be:
The objectives of this side event are:-
Climate change is a ‘game’ changer. It poses a significant and unique challenge to Africa because so much of its economy depends on a climate sensitive natural resource base i.e. rain-fed subsistence agriculture.
Climate change is not the only destabilizing factor where African agriculture is concerned. Africa’s main priority presently is not so much directed at preventing long-term climate change shocks, but more crucially, it is about how the region can adapt and navigate around the short-term shocks. Dependence on such resources exposes the continent to the risks of reduction on agriculture, deforestation and degradation of water resources, which affects irrigation, hydropower generation and water for domestic and industrial use. As future predications point to increased incidences of extreme climate events, African policymakers should prioritize climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in their development planning in order to sustain its current growth, and jointly address agriculture, water and energy challenges.
However, whilst climate impacts continue unabated in different manifestations in some of the most sensitive regions of the African continent, Africa can rewrite a new narrative of opportunity that is strongly aligned with moving against the tide to seize the potential in creating new markets. Africa can sustain its growth momentum and potential by ring-fencing its climate sensitive sectors into growth poles and thus enhancing the security of water, food and energy in terms of production, use and control.
Discussions on these three development imperatives will enable African negotiators to understand the full complexity of the issues, and to plan effectively in the context of the post 2015 Agreement. The current discussion will be anchored on a narrative of opportunity stressing on the huge possibilities that are open to African countries in the areas of agriculture, water and energy security. The debate comes at a time when the growth trajectory in Africa is gaining more visibility, with some of the fastest growing economies being African, with an average growth rate of 5% in 2012. Although the rate of growth has stagnated and even plummeted to 4% in 2013, Africa is still poised to reach a double-digit growth rate in less than a decade. The continent has to move against the tide of growing social inequalities, climate change impacts and a demographic bulge in which Africa’s youth, in the main, have remained gridlocked on the periphery of development opportunities with little recourse to gainful employment opportunities. Redressing the youth demographic challenge and translating this into a full dividend will mean increasing the security of access around critical services in terms of energy, food and water.
Africa’s population is projected to almost double by 2050. This will raise demand for food and water required to increase agricultural production to meet growing demand while water availability is declining due to rainfall variability and increase in competing uses. Rain-fed agriculture remains the main stay of most countries in Africa, accounting for more than 90% of production, contributes about 40% of GDP and employs about 65% of Africa’s labour force. Impressive growth on the continent has made little impact on poverty because growth occurs mainly in extractive sector with low elasticity to poverty (WB 2008) whereas growth in agricultural sector has the highest impact on poverty reduction. Wide scale modernised irrigation systems and improved agronomic practices will redress problems relating to soil conservation, a necessary precondition, for food production and stability. This would call for a radical shift in the way Africa modernises and create productive opportunities vis-a-vis agriculture. It would equate with an agricultural sector that is robust enough to absorb and bounce back from climate change stress and shocks. The resilience of the sector will also depend on its ability to transform the lives of millions of small holder farmers to take on bold adaptation and mitigation strategies and to embrace opportunities in agribusiness and entrepreneurial activities that can sustain farming communities and leverage wealth generating potential. A transformed agricultural sector anchored on strong institutions and effective policy and regulatory frameworks will create a pathway for small holder farmers to be active market agents. Subsequently, it will enable the confluence of agriculture and industrialization as necessary preconditions for Africa’s structural transformation.
Africa’s ability to fast track growth using agriculture as a lever for transformation will depend on its ability to invest in new technologies and innovative that will sustain current economic prosperity and reduce ecological scarcities. Greening Africa’s economies is one way of moving against the tide of climate impacts to adopt deliberate policies and practices that will enable the region to hedge its bet on critical investment opportunities in renewable energy technologies. If Africa is able to increase investment in energy development, it will be able to unleash the potential of maximising its energy security. Africa has sufficient energy sources to exploit in terms of hydropower since it has 12% of global sources, 325 days of sunshine, and 3,700 miles of thermal potential and substantial sources of wind energy. Energy is an essential ingredient to drive transformation of agriculture across the value chain in Africa. In addition, for transformation to succeed and sustain growth, African countries will have to consider the three sectors together and not in isolation when planning to increase productivity of energy, agriculture and industry.
Equally Africa has abundant water resources relative to human purposes but human, institutional, financial capital and distribution limit access to sufficient water and impacts of climate change magnifies the problems of water availability and accessibility. 25% of Africa’s populations (approximately 200 million people) are already experiencing water stress and more countries are expected to face high risks in the future due to predicted increase in climate extremes and demand. Agriculture consumes 85% of water under current inefficient production systems; increasing production using similar practices will exert more pressure on water resources; worsen deforestation and degrade catchment areas which may in turn lead to increased food and water insecurity. According to IPCCT 4th assessment report yields will decline to as low as 50% by 2020 as a result of disproportionate increase in extreme events of drought and floods. Therefore improvements in agriculture production systems and changes in management for agricultural water will be critical component in the face of both climate and socio-economic pressures in the coming decades.
The side event is organised under the patronage of the ClimDev-Africa initiative. The side event aims at targeting African policy makers, vulnerable groups, research communities and specific groups such as the African Group of Negotiators and climate scientists. It will provide an opportunity to discuss the fundamental issue of human and economic security in a changing climate and will enable African scholars and policy makers alike to turn current challenges into a business proposition. It will ask questions such as: