CASA-led climate discussions in Malawi shape Africa Food Systems Summit agenda

The challenge of financing climate-smart technologies in the agriculture sector, was one of the pressing priorities identified by investors.

Alvaro Valverde of CASA said, ‘The key informant interviews ahead of the Malawi Agribusiness Investment Meeting, earlier this year, consistently flagged climate finance for adaptation as a hot topic. Climate change is driving some extreme weather conditions in Malawi, and many other African nations. These changes can have devastating effects on food security and smallholder farmers’ incomes and agribusiness supply chains. There is a need for action and investment across the agri-food sector’

The CASA team worked closely alongside colleagues at AGRA to plan and deliver the event. The action planning sessions in the meeting identified four actionable priorities, which were closely aligned to the government’s own priorities.

Lessons from the Malawi meeting are now being applied to the Africa Food Systems Forum- the AGRF, taking place Tanzania in September. The AGRF is the world’s premier forum on African agriculture and food systems. The attending stakeholders are encouraged to commit to take practical action and share lessons that will move African food systems forward.

Mumbi Maina, Agribusiness Dealroom lead at AGRA said:

“The leadership shown by CASA, in setting up the Malawi meeting, led AGRA to invite them to help shape the climate finance discussions that will take place as part of the Dealroom at the Africa Food Systems Summit in September 2023.

The processes and action points, identified in Malawi, have informed the agenda of the climate strand of the AGRF’s Dealroom, including the climate finance thematic discussions, workshops with the private sector, and government delegations. These discussions are designed to spearhead investment in climate adaptation to prevent food insecurity and to maintain smallholder incomes. AGRA also looks forward to working with CASA to share the emerging priorities with key audiences in Africa and beyond, building the momentum for change.”

The Agribusiness Dealroom is described as a matchmaking platform which runs concurrently with the AGRF Summit. It works to facilitate partnerships and investments in African agriculture and food systems. Each year over 800 companies, 15 government delegations and 150 public and private investors attend. The Dealroom creates partnership opportunities designed to supports governments and SMEs to access finance.

In 2023, finance for climate adaptation will be one of the four key thematic strands at the event. Over the past few months, the CASA team has coordinated a steering group that identified a series of practical and action-orientated elements making up the climate theme.

Alvaro Valverde concluded ‘The partners in the AGRF Dealroom climate change group have worked hard to deliver a range of interventions that included fact finding, plenaries, briefings, pitching sessions and master classes. Collectively, these sessions should give AGRA and its partners evidence to take forward to COP28.’

Sessions organized by the partners of the climate change working group at the AGRF Dealroom include:

CASA has worked with a team of leading organizations in the climate finance working group, these include: AGRA, Acumen, CGIAR, SAFIN, USAID, PlanAdapt.

More on the event: