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

The document analyzes the current state of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) in Africa, identifying systemic barriers such as fragmented policies, significant funding gaps, and the exclusion of smallholder farmers. It highlights opportunities in digital technology, indigenous knowledge, and private sector engagement. To address these, it recommends that the South African G20 Presidency champion blended finance mechanisms, strengthen regional collaboration through Regional Economic Communities (RECs), integrate traditional knowledge into policy, improve monitoring and evaluation systems, and accelerate the adoption of agri-tech.

• African CSA policy is structured across three levels: continental frameworks like the Malabo Declaration and CAADP; regional coordination via Regional Economic Communities (RECs) such as ECOWAS, SADC, and the EAC; and national-level integration through NDCs and specific strategies in countries like Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana.
• Implementation of CSA is hindered by policy fragmentation, where overlapping programs lack coordination and national priorities often conflict with regional goals. Many national policies are reactionary, developed to secure donor funding or respond to crises rather than through integrated planning.
• There is a severe funding gap for African agriculture; government spending has declined from 3.06% of national budgets in 2001 to 2.55% in 2020, falling short of the 10% target set by the Maputo and Malabo Declarations. Additionally, the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector receives only 16% of climate finance in Africa, while the energy sector receives 31%.
• Smallholder farmers are largely excluded from CSA policy design and practice. Extension services typically employ a top-down approach that ignores the expertise and lived realities of these farmers, treating innovation as a technological process rather than a social one.
• African countries face significant difficulties in tracking CSA performance due to irregular data collection, fragmented information systems, and a lack of gender-disaggregated data, as highlighted by the 4th CAADP Biennial Review.
• Digital technologies, including geospatial tools, IoT, and big data, offer transformative potential for CSA through early warning systems and precision agriculture, as seen with Nigeria's AgroMall and Kenya's Digital Green, though high costs and low digital literacy remain barriers.

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} }