By Obinna Uballa
The African Development Fund (ADF) says it has approved a $14.64 million grant to scale up climate resilience and food security initiatives across the Sahel region.
A statement from the bank on Tuesday said the financing, drawn from the ADF’s Climate Action Window, will support the second phase of the Programme to Strengthen Resilience to Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2-P2RS). The Climate Action Window serves as the African Development Bank Group’s concessional climate financing mechanism.
According to the Fund, the new grant is targeted at helping vulnerable communities adapt to worsening climate shocks, particularly erratic rainfall, droughts, and extreme weather patterns that continue to threaten food systems across the Sahel.
The project will expand the “climate-smart villages” model – an approach that integrates climate-resilient agriculture, technology, and community-led adaptation – around key hydro-agricultural infrastructure. It will also improve access to climate information, enabling farmers, local authorities, and policymakers to make better-informed decisions.
As part of efforts to strengthen the regional seed system, the grant will finance the dissemination of resilient and high-yield crop varieties. Planned interventions include updating the Regional Catalogue of Species and Varieties, developing a business networking portal for seed actors, and boosting the seed multiplication capacity of national research institutions and seed companies. Women and youth are expected to benefit from targeted empowerment and capacity-building programmes.
In addition, the project will improve the region’s climate monitoring capabilities. The ADF said funds will go into enhancing real-time climate data collection, establishing an integrated digital platform for data management, and creating a regional system to monitor and report climate-related loss and damage. This will include a unified digital platform and harmonised reporting standards across participating countries.
Overall, the grant will support 30 municipalities and facilitate the creation of 60 climate-smart villages across Sahelian nations under the P2-P2RS initiative.
The ADF emphasised that the investment forms part of its long-term commitment to helping the Sahel strengthen climate resilience, protect livelihoods, and improve food and nutrition security amid intensifying environmental pressures.
