From adaptation to climate-resilient development: The costs of climate-proofing the Millennium Development Goals in Africa

Abstract

Socio-economic development and adaptation to climate change are closely intertwined. Adaptation is sometimes described as climate-resilient development or development under a hostile climate. In support of this view, this paper estimates the combined cost of meeting and at the same time ‘climate-proofing’ the millennium development goals (MDGs) for Africa. Treating adaptation and development in an integrated way helps to better understand financing requirements analytically and, more importantly, to implement the requisite measures more effectively as part of an integrated development programme. We find that the external financing needed for ‘climate-resilient’ MDGs is about 40 per cent higher than the external financing for the MDGs alone – up to USD100 billion a year for the next decade, compared with USD72 billion a year for the MDGs alone. This estimate is indicative only and based on fairly cursory aggregate data. The next challenge would be to apply the integrated adaptation and development frameworks to concrete development strategies at the country level.