Globally, climate change remains a big challenge to humanity and its impacts are vast, interlinked and widely documented. These impacts vary across regions, with developing countries bearing the biggest brunt. Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change due to a combination of factors, including:

1. heavy dependence of livelihoods and economic activities on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources;
2. natural fragility of its ecosystems (degradation and desertification accounts for 67% of Africa’s surface area);
3. poorly developed infrastructure (especially water, energy, ICT and transport) that can hardly survive extreme weather events such as floods and drought; and
4. weak economies, relatively lacking in financial and technological resources for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Climate change remains relevant in our activities due to several reasons. Firstly, the Paris Agreement commits the international community to an ambitious collective goal to hold global warming well below 2 degrees with efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees; an aim for greenhouse gas emissions to peak as soon as possible and achieve a net zero emission in the second half of the century; and a requirement for mitigation measures of individual countries to be expressed in nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The recently concluded 26^th Conference of Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow, UK, reinforced these commitments. Secondly, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 commits the international community to take urgent action to combat climate change. Similarly, the African Union (AU) Agenda-2063 requires African governments to act with a sense of urgency on climate change and environment. This commitment has been taken up by STISA-2024 under priorities 4 “protection of our space” and 5 “living together-build the society” that provide opportunities for enhanced application of STI.

Inclusive, pro-poor and thriving climate change resilient economies for economic, social and environmental sustainability in Africa.

To provide policy choices that support the generation, uptake and harnessing of climate change-related STI for sustainable and diversified livelihoods, socio-economic development and biodiversity conservation in Africa.

To support the development of enabling capacities, policies, organisations and institutions for harnessing applications of climate change-related sciences, technologies and innovations for energy access and security, water quality and security, biodiversity and natural resource management in Africa by:

1. Mobilising resources and funds for building climate-resilient economies;
2. Strengthening the research quality and messaging within international discourses through the climate change policy laboratory;
3. Strengthening knowledge and learning systems on climate change through the virtual academy;
4. Leveraging strategic partnerships for influence and outreach on policy, research and training.

Programme focus (Key areas)

Building on the achievements of ACTS over the last 10 years under the Climate Resilient Economy programme and, considering the projects that are transiting to the 2022-2026 period, this programme focuses on supporting African countries and institutions to tap into global and regional opportunities in climate discourse. Specifically, during the 2022-2026 period, the programme will build the capacity of African countries and institutions in the following areas: