Africa must prove climate adaptation is saving lives, not just spending money

When floods leave roads impassable, water supplies become contaminated and children fall ill, the consequences of climate change are measured in more than damaged infrastructure or financial losses. They are measured in lives disrupted, household incomes lost and families struggling to cope.

For Dr Richard Munang, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), these are the realities that must shape how Africa measures progress on climate adaptation.

“Adaptation is not what we spend. Adaptation is who we protect,” he told participants at the African Technical Workshop on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) Indicators in Accra.

The three-day workshop, held from 22 to 24 October 2026 at the West African Genetic Medicine Centre, brought together African climate negotiators, government officials, technical experts and representatives of the United Nations University and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Its central task was to test whether the global adaptation indicators can adequately reflect Ghana’s national priorities, what existing data systems can measure and where gaps must be addressed.

The exercise comes as countries begin working with the 59 Belém Adaptation Indicators adopted under the Global Goal on Adaptation process. For African countries, the challenge is no longer simply to agree on a framework for measuring adaptation, but to determine whether it captures the results that matter to people and communities.

Dr Munang argued that climate adaptation must be judged by its impact on people’s lives, rather than by the amount of money allocated or spent.

Drawing on his childhood in north-western Cameroon, where failed maize harvests left his family struggling to find food, he recalled how climate pressures can deepen the vulnerability of households already facing economic hardship.

That experience, he said, reinforced the need to connect adaptation policies and investments to tangible improvements in people’s lives.

“Because if you don't count what is failing, you cannot fix it,” he said, calling for evidence that identifies both successful interventions and those that fall short.

He pointed to the links between disaster risks and public health, arguing that poorly maintained drainage systems, flooded roads and delayed early-warning messages can have consequences that extend well beyond the immediate disaster.

A flooded road can prevent an ambulance from reaching someone in need. Contaminated water can expose children to waterborne diseases. When early warnings fail to reach communities in time, the consequences can be devastating.

These connections underpin the workshop’s decision to focus on disaster risk reduction and health, two areas where the effectiveness of adaptation measures can have direct consequences for human wellbeing.

For UNU-INRA, working with the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health offers an opportunity to examine these connections more closely and strengthen the evidence used to assess adaptation outcomes.

Ghana’s national priorities take centre stage

Ghana is serving as the pilot country for the exercise, providing an opportunity to compare its National Adaptation Plan and sector priorities with the global indicators.

The assessment is intended to establish where national priorities align with the indicators, where important outcomes may be missing and whether the data and institutional arrangements needed for reporting are already in place.

Director of the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, Dr Revathi Phalkey, said the exercise should help countries determine whether their existing systems can adequately measure progress towards their adaptation ambitions.

“What we really need to measure is where do we need to go and how fast we can get there,” she said.

Her remarks underscored the importance of looking beyond historical performance to assess the pace and scale of action needed to meet future adaptation goals.

Representing the Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators, Stella Okoh of Ghana’s Environmental Protection Authority said the workshop would help institutions identify how existing national reporting systems could be used to track the indicators.

“The conversation is not to create different reporting formats,” she said, explaining that the priority was to build on existing national systems, identify gaps and determine what needed to improve.

She also highlighted the importance of monitoring whether adaptation interventions were actually building resilience in Ghana.

The approach is expected to bring together institutions responsible for climate adaptation, health, disaster management and reporting, helping them assess what information is available and where additional work is required.

From global indicators to national action

For the UNFCCC Secretariat, the exercise forms part of the wider effort to establish how the global indicators can be applied across different national contexts.

Motsomi Maletjane of the Secretariat’s Adaptation Division said countries had agreed to test the indicators voluntarily following their adoption at COP30. The resulting experience will help inform the development of indicator metadata and methodologies, as well as assessments of their applicability to national circumstances.

“These exercises by Ghana, many other countries that are doing similar exercises are very key to being able to tell how countries can start to work with the indicators,” he said.

The findings are also expected to contribute to countries’ reporting on adaptation progress and inform their own planning processes.

For Ghana, the workshop’s practical work centres on mapping national adaptation priorities against the relevant indicators, examining data availability and identifying methodological, institutional, technical and financial gaps.

Participants are also expected to develop recommendations for addressing those gaps and identify lessons that could be adapted by other African countries.

Building an evidence-based African position

Beyond the technical assessment, the exercise carries implications for Africa’s engagement in international climate negotiations.

Dr Munang said the continent needed evidence to demonstrate whether adaptation investments were delivering results and whether the global indicators adequately reflected African priorities.

He argued that indicators should not be accepted simply because they form part of an international framework. Where they fail to capture national ambitions or outcomes, countries should be able to demonstrate the shortcomings and make the case for improvement.

“Africa is not poor. Africa is uncounted,” he said, stressing the importance of strengthening the evidence available to African policymakers and negotiators.

The workshop is expected to produce an assessment of Ghana’s alignment with the indicators, a review of implementation gaps, practical guidance for future country-level exercises and policy messages to support African engagement ahead of COP31 and COP32.

The wider ambition is to develop an approach that other African countries can use to assess the indicators against their own adaptation plans, priorities and reporting systems.

For Dr Munang, however, the ultimate test remains whether adaptation makes a measurable difference to ordinary people.

“We can only say we have adapted if that child who is playing aside today will not end up in a clinic tomorrow,” he said.

That challenge places the focus firmly on outcomes of whether communities are better protected from disasters, whether health risks are reduced and whether public investments are building resilience where it is needed most.

As Ghana undertakes the pilot assessment, its findings could help shape a more practical approach to measuring adaptation across Africa, one that connects international commitments to national priorities and, ultimately, to the lives those commitments are intended to protect.