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September 27th, 2015

Farms of Change: African smallholders responding to an uncertain climate future

Published by Montepellier Panel,

The new Montpellier Panel report (PDF) focuses on how African small-holder farmers respond to an uncertain climate future and how they can be agents of change. In addition, it focuses on what financial options are available and how funding could be improved for this. Impacts of climate change are already felt in Africa. Mean temperatures in Africa will rise faster than the global average, and agricultural losses in the region will amount to 2% to 7% of GDP by 2100. By 2050, hunger and child malnutrition could increase by as much as 20% as a result of climate change, reversing the gains achieved through the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) process, and jeopardising the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report calls for donors and government to boost investment, to avoid problems that would have catastrophic results on African development such as major food shortages, increased child malnutrition, unplanned migration, food price hikes and exacerbated poverty. The report advocates for this funding gap to be met through public and private resources, but allowing local governments to allocate funds according to need. The report analyses the finance options currently available to smallholders from multilateral funding mechanisms, as well as schemes such as carbon markets.

Curated from ag4impact.org