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Financing adaptation in Least Developed Countries in West Africa: is finance the ‘real deal’?

The tensions between adaptation and development are considered for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of West Africa. Adaptation is development under uncertainty and involves implementing practices that will provide security and well-being to poor resource-dependent communities. Climate change impacts will very probably derail development deliverables, thus negating hard-won development gains. Encouraged by the mainstreaming of adaptation into development policy, there is a tendency to treat them as the same thing. However, this can lead to adaptation projects that neglect activities that do not typically fall under the remit of development. The main challenges to financing adaptation consist in the lack of sufficiently strong institutions to ensure behavioural change, and the lack of appropriate reliable sources of funding, as well as the strategies and processes to create resilient societies, make adaptation more sustainable, and facilitate knowledge-sharing and capacity-building. The best way to ensure appropriate adaptation is for there to be a burden-sharing mechanism that operates across West Africa, involving—and requiring the cooperation of—many extant institutions. Indeed, the introduction of energy and water considerations into the climate policies of LDCs provides an unprecedented opportunity to deal with the threat of climate change. The prospects of the Adaptation Fund in delivering adaptation and development are also discussed.