Audrey Galawu- Assistant Editor

African leaders officially adopted the Addis Ababa Declaration on Accelerating Global Climate Solutions: Financing for Africa's Resilient and Green Development and the flagship report of the African Climate Initiatives at the African Climate Summit in Ethiopia. 

The historic decision placed Africa firmly at the forefront of global climate action.

For decades, the continent had been portrayed primarily as a climate victim, besieged by droughts, floods, and food insecurity. 

The Addis Ababa Declaration, however, reframed Africa not as a passive recipient of aid, but as a proactive, visionary leader offering scalable, justice-centered solutions rooted in indigenous knowledge, community resilience, and ecological stewardship.

Emergency relief and Climate expert, Eddwell Urayayi said the declaration sent “a powerful message that Africa was no longer seeking sympathy but demanding respect.

 It asserted the continent’s moral authority in climate negotiations, grounded in its minimal historical emissions and its disproportionate climate impacts.”

Yet the financial reality underscored the scale of Africa’s challenge. The continent needs about US$2.8 trillion by 2030 to fully implement its Nationally Determined Contributions for both mitigation and adaptation. 

Current climate finance flows fall far short of this ambition—averaging just US$29.5 billion per year in 2019/20, and rising slightly to US$43.7 billion in 2021/22.

Adaptation costs in sub-Saharan Africa alone are estimated at US$30–50 billion annually over the next decade. Already, African economies are losing an average of 2–5% of GDP due to climate extremes, while some governments are forced to divert up to 9% of their budgets toward disaster response.

Against this backdrop, the declaration launched the Africa Climate Innovation Compact, a mechanism to channel African-led finance into local technologies, startups, and community projects. 

It aimed to decolonize climate finance and reduce reliance on slow, donor-driven models. Rwanda’s Green Fund, which financed over 40 climate-smart projects, and Senegal’s Climate Finance Taskforce were cited as examples of how strong institutions could mobilize both domestic and external resources.

“If Africa built robust finance institutions within ministries and trained civil servants in climate budgeting, it could sustain its own climate agenda,” Urayayi said.

Nature-based solutions were elevated as the gateway for climate-resilient and green development. Ethiopia’s Green Legacy, which mobilised millions of people to plant more than 25 billion trees, was recognised as a continental model. 

Other initiatives such as the African Union’s Great Green Wall and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative were highlighted as critical pathways. 

“Africa’s leadership was not just about policy—it was about people, pride, and possibility,” he added.

The Addis Ababa Declaration called for strengthened and sustained support to scale up these African-led initiatives. 

Leaders emphasised that Africa’s vast landscapes and biodiversity were not liabilities but assets that, if leveraged through reforestation, agroecology, wetland restoration, and carbon markets, could drive resilience and growth.

 Opportunities included youth-led monitoring networks to track restoration, carbon credit schemes that rewarded smallholder farmers, and diaspora-backed green bonds to finance community-driven climate projects.

Continental collaboration and knowledge-sharing were emphasized as essential. Leaders committed to harmonizing efforts like the Great Green Wall, AFR100, and the Green Legacy under a pan-African framework that would enable peer learning, pooled resources, and cross-border monitoring.

 The Great Green Wall, which already spanned 11 Sahelian countries restoring degraded land and creating livelihoods, was cited as proof that unity was Africa’s greatest strength.

Innovation was also placed at the center of Africa’s climate future. Through the Africa Climate Innovation Compact, governments pledged to host hackathons, incubators, and research partnerships to fast-track technologies ranging from drought-resistant seeds to AI-powered early warning systems. 

Ghana’s MEST Africa incubator, which supported startups developing solar-powered irrigation and climate-smart logistics, was recognized as a model of how local ingenuity could solve global problems.

“The Addis Ababa Declaration turned Africa’s vulnerability into leadership,” EddClimate concluded. 

“It proved that Africa was not a problem to be solved, but a solution provider ready to lead the world toward climate justice and resilience.”