FAO and AIM for Climate Partner to Optimize Agricultural Spending for Climate Resilience

Key Takeaways

• New Partnership: FAO and AIM for Climate have announced a collaboration to help governments optimize agricultural spending for climate resilience.
• Focus on Africa: The partnership aims to address the high vulnerability to climate change in Africa’s food and agriculture sectors.
• Analytical Support: Governments will receive a package of analyses and tools to guide public agricultural expenditure developed by FAO’s MAFAP program.
• Policy Optimization: A newly developed modeling tool will calculate optimal budget allocations for inclusive agricultural transformation.
• Database Expansion: The public expenditure database for agriculture will be expanded to include climate mitigation and adaptation markers.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and AIM for Climate, a joint initiative by the United States and the United Arab Emirates, have announced a new partnership aimed at helping governments make more innovative agricultural investments to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The announcement was made at the pre-forum of the 2023 edition of the Africa Food Systems Forum (AGRF) in Dar es Salaam.

Addressing Climate Vulnerability in Agriculture

The collaboration comes at a crucial time, particularly for Africa, where vulnerability to climate change in the food and agriculture sectors is the highest globally. Marco V. Sánchez, Deputy Director of Agrifood Economics at FAO, emphasized the need for evidence-based support to tackle the challenges posed by climate change. “We are here today to show that we have innovative tools and a team of people to help governments spend what they have and could have in the future, but in a climate-smarter way,” he said.

Analytical Tools for Inclusive Transformation

The partnership will offer governments a package of analyses and tools to accelerate inclusive agricultural transformation. This includes policy evidence to guide public expenditure in agriculture, which is particularly useful for shaping national adaptation plans and meeting climate resilience.

Role of the MAFAP Programme

FAO’s Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) program will conduct the analytical work. It will utilize a recently developed policy optimization modeling tool that calculates optimal public budget allocations for various agricultural objectives, such as increasing output, creating jobs, and lifting people out of poverty.

Expanding Public Expenditure Database

The collaboration will also expand the public expenditure database that the MAFAP program has built for over 15 African countries. This will include adding better climate mitigation and adaptation markers to understand climate change’s impacts on public budgets.

Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash