The African Development Fund’s Board of Directors has approved a $14.64 million grant to finance Project 2 of the Programme to Strengthen Resilience to Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel. The decision, announced in Abidjan on 21 November 2025, provides additional support to help Sahelian communities confront growing climate challenges. The financing comes through the Climate Action Window, the African Development Fund’s climate-focused mechanism under the African Development Bank Group.
The grant is intended to boost the adaptive capacity and climate resilience of communities across the Sahel as they face more frequent and intense climate extremes. The project uses a dual strategy that expands the “climate-smart villages” model around hydro-agricultural sites while improving community access to reliable climate information for better planning and decision-making.
A significant part of the funding will strengthen the regional seed system by promoting the distribution of resilient, high-yield seed varieties. Planned activities include updating the Regional Catalogue of Species and Varieties, establishing a business-to-business digital networking portal, and enhancing seed multiplication capacities within national research systems and seed companies to supply climate-smart villages. The project will also support the empowerment of women and youth through targeted training and capacity development initiatives.
Further support will be directed toward improving climate data collection and monitoring systems to enable real-time information flow across observation networks. The project will develop an integrated digital platform for data management and rapid dissemination, along with a regional system for tracking and managing loss and damage data. This will involve standardizing reporting processes across participating countries and creating a multi-scale digital platform for centralized data storage and analysis.
The Climate Action Window financing will benefit 30 municipalities and lead to the creation of 60 climate-smart villages across the Sahel. These investments aim to significantly strengthen community resilience and help vulnerable populations better withstand the impacts of climate shocks.
