Africa is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe, and with 20 countries already warming faster than the globe, this means that the safe threshold of 1.5℃ will be breached faster in Africa than in any other region. But climate change is only one red flag.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the global system. This devastation and the responses fostered by different countries have exposed Africa’s urgent need for resilient economies. Across the globe, different countries are offering multiple rounds of economic stimulus to spur growth. Cumulatively, it is estimated that around $12 trillion was issued in stimulus packages. This was affordable because this credit was accessible at interest rates as low as 0% in some cases.

However, the same convenience was unavailable for Africa, a continent whose needs were pegged at around $100 billion. This predicament highlights African economies' low productivity, putting them at high risk for debt capital.
The reality of minimal value addition, where the proportion of manufacturing value-added has stagnated at an average of just 10% of GDP since the 1970s, has come to hurt Africa in its time of need.

But what is economic productivity? Studies show that human capital is 15 times the value of natural capital and 4 times the value of produced capital.

A productive citizenry is, therefore, the bedrock of productive economies.
How well public resources are invested in nurturing such a population provides the best indicator of how productive our economies can be under changing climate. But we must first ask where these people are engaged right now.

Over 80% of Africans are engaged in the informal sector. This means that the story of Africa is incomplete without the informal sector. This sector is the chassis on which our economic engine thrives. It employs many people in rural and urban areas, and many of them depend on the agro-sector, which employs over 60% of the population. Leveraging this sector to create inclusive economic opportunities is our own fierce urgency now. We urgently need to re-orientate our economies by leveraging climate action solutions, and the following tenets can set us on this path.

First, we must prioritise growing the economy, not distributing its proceeds. Africa’s budgetary expenditure continues to rise, but in recurrent expenditure, not in areas that can catalyse more opportunities. Just to give an example in the climate action area, it is estimated that Africa already spends up to 20% of its total adaptation needs annually, which amounts to $3 billion. But the big problem is that this money goes into social expenditure.

Dr. Richard Munang is the United Nations Environment Africa Regional Climate Change Programme Coordinator. He is responsible for guiding the optimal actualisation of UN Environment’s climate resilient development objectives for Africa through coordinating implementation of diverse projects in adaptation and mitigation in key economic sectors especially agriculture, and energy as well as informing strategy and policy development from project lessons.
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