Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways for Action under the South African G20 Presidency

This policy note by the South African Institute of International Affairs outlines the landscape of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) in Africa and provides five strategic recommendations for the 2025 South African G20 Presidency to advance agricultural resilience, financing, and digital transformation across the continent.

• Africa's CSA policy framework is structured across three levels: continental commitments led by the African Union (such as the Malabo Declaration and the Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Vision 25x25), regional coordination via Regional Economic Communities (RECs) like ECOWAS and SADC, and national-level integration through tools like Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
• Implementation of CSA in Africa is hindered by fragmented policies, where overlapping programs and weak inter-ministerial coordination lead to a duplication of functions and wastage of resources. Many national policies are reactionary, developed to secure donor funding or respond to crises rather than through integrated planning.
• There is a significant gap in climate finance for African agriculture; the continent receives only 3-4% of global climate finance, and the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector accounts for only 16% of that finance. Furthermore, African governments typically allocate less than 3% of national budgets to agriculture, failing the 10% target set in the Maputo and Malabo Declarations.
• Smallholder farmers are frequently excluded from CSA policy design and practice. Extension services often employ top-down approaches that disregard the indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) of farmers, creating a mismatch between recommended technologies and the actual lived realities of the farmers.
• Digital technologies, including geospatial tools, the Internet of Things (IoT), and big data analytics, offer opportunities to transform CSA through early warning systems and precision agriculture. Examples include Nigeria's AgroMall and Kenya's Digital Green, though adoption is limited by high software costs and low digital literacy.
• The document proposes five recommendations for the South African G20 Presidency: creating a blended finance platform for CSA, strengthening regional collaboration through RECs, integrating indigenous knowledge into policy, enhancing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems, and accelerating the adoption of rural digital infrastructure.

APA

ARUM, S., ODHIAMBO, I., CHEPCHENG, L., KARANJA, L., NJASI, A., AWOLALA, D., & WAMUKOYA, G. (2025). Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways for Action under the South African G20 Presidency. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SAIIA_PN_19_ARUM-et-al_G20ClimateSmartAgriculture-2.pdf

Chicago

ARUM, SHADRACK, ISAACK ODHIAMBO, LYNN CHEPCHENG, LISSA KARANJA, ABIGAEL NJASI, DAVID AWOLALA, and GEORGE WAMUKOYA. Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways for Action under the South African G20 Presidency. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2025. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SAIIA_PN_19_ARUM-et-al_G20ClimateSmartAgriculture-2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=ARUM |first1=SHADRACK |last2=ODHIAMBO |first2=ISAACK |last3=CHEPCHENG |first3=LYNN |last4=KARANJA |first4=LISSA |last5=NJASI |first5=ABIGAEL |last6=AWOLALA |first6=DAVID |last7=WAMUKOYA |first7=GEORGE |title=Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways for Action under the South African G20 Presidency |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=19 October 2025 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SAIIA_PN_19_ARUM-et-al_G20ClimateSmartAgriculture-2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{arum2025implementing, author = {ARUM, SHADRACK and ODHIAMBO, ISAACK and CHEPCHENG, LYNN and KARANJA, LISSA and NJASI, ABIGAEL and AWOLALA, DAVID and WAMUKOYA, GEORGE}, title = {{Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways for Action under the South African G20 Presidency}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SAIIA_PN_19_ARUM-et-al_G20ClimateSmartAgriculture-2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }