Dar es Salaam. Africa is receiving only a quarter of the adaptation funding it needs, a new report has revealed. Released on November 14, 2025, during the ongoing COP30 climate summit in Belém, the report named, “Reforming Climate Finance: Adaptation Finance in Africa”, shows that African countries require $51 billion (Sh32.3 trillion) annually to protect their people and economies from rising climate impacts, yet received only $12.9 billion (Sh125 trillion) in 2023.
This shortfall comes as climate-fuelled disasters intensify across the continent, washing away homes, destroying harvests, and overwhelming fragile health systems, widening the adaptation finance gap at a dangerous pace and deepening loss and damage already underway.
In practical terms, three out of every four dollars needed to safeguard vulnerable communities never materialise.
Climate analysts warn that this gap is no longer theoretical; it is directly driving loss and damage, from worsening food insecurity and collapsing livelihoods to repeated displacement caused by floods, droughts, and wildfires.
Loss and damage rising as adaptation falls short
Researchers warn that failure to invest in adaptation today will lock the continent into escalating losses. According to the report, Africa risks forfeiting $6 trillion in potential economic benefits by 2035 if climate-proofing investments continue to lag.
These opportunity costs represent schools not built, businesses not started, and productivity lost as climate shocks disrupt economic activities across the region.
Nick Hedley, Energy Transition Research Analyst at Zero Carbon Analytics, captures the urgency noting that “Africa is more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than any other region, despite contributing the least to the crisis”.
According to him the continent needs at least $51 billion a year to adapt to worsening droughts, floods and wildfires, but is currently receiving just a quarter of that amount.
He adds that because the returns on adaptation investments are shared widely across society rather than generating profit for individual investor’s public institutions must carry the biggest responsibility.
“These types of projects are often better suited to public-sector funders” he said.
Public finance remains the backbone and the gap is dangerous
The report finds that 95 percent of Africa’s adaptation finance in 2023 came from public sources: foreign governments, development finance institutions, and multilateral climate funds. But even where funding is committed, African countries struggle to receive it.
Between 2014 and 2018, less than half of committed adaptation funds were actually disbursed, largely due to complex donor procedures and limited institutional capacity in recipient countries.
This delay contributes directly to loss and damage. Communities remain exposed to floods because early-warning systems are not installed on time; coastal villages continue losing land to erosion because seawalls are not built; and hospitals face disease outbreaks without climate-resilient infrastructure.
Energy Transition Research Analyst at Zero Carbon Analytics, Amy Kong, warns that unless institutional capacity is strengthened, adaptation money will not translate into meaningful resilience.
“Building institutional capacity in African countries is essential to ensure adaptation finance delivers lasting impact rather than one-off interventions” she said.
Debt is worsening vulnerability
Another central concern is the form in which finance is delivered. More than half of the continent’s population now lives in countries that spend more on debt interest than on health or education.
Adding loans in the name of adaptation risks deepening inequality and worsening loss and damage.
Head of Strategy at Africa Climate Insights, Samuel Onyango explains, “Adaptation finance should not come to vulnerable countries in the form of debt. Many are already over indebted. More debt in the name of adaptation finance makes them more brittle, not resilient.”
He insists that grants and highly concessional finance are the only appropriate options for regions where climate shocks are increasing in speed and severity.
Why this matters for COP30
The Brazilian Presidency has framed COP30, now underway in Belém, as the “COP of adaptation.”
The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG) has also warned that adaptation and resilience needs are rising every year.
For Africa, the stakes could not be higher. Dr Richard Muyungi, Tanzania’s climate envoy and Chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), underscores the global interdependence of climate impacts.
“Adaptation finance is not an African request; it is a global necessity. The floods that drown our fields today will one day find their way into the balance sheets of faraway economies” he said.
His message echoes the broader demand from developing nations: without scaled-up, predictable, and accessible adaptation finance, the world will pay far more in loss and damage financially, socially and geopolitically.
Although UNEP estimates the private sector could expand adaptation investment from $5 billion to $50 billion annually, significant structural changes would be required.
Adaptation projects are often “less bankable” small in size, localised, and generating indirect benefits that are hard to quantify.
The report stresses that private finance must remain supportive, not substitutive. Governments, multilateral funds, and DFIs must continue to drive adaptation because the risks of failure are too great and too immediate.
