GCA with African Development Bank to Strengthen Climate-Resilient Agricultural Value Chains in Eastern Angola
R
otterdam, 25 November 2025 – The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) today announced the launch of technical assistance to embed climate adaptation into the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Eastern Region Agricultural Value Chain Development Project in Angola. The AfDB’s US$211.4 million million investment seeks to improve food and nutrition security, raise household incomes and expand employment opportunities in Angola’s eastern provinces of Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Moxico and Cuando Cubango—widely regarded as the country’s agricultural breadbasket. Implemented under the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), co-led by AfDB and GCA, the project will support resilient growth across key value chains including cassava, maize, beans, sorghum, soybeans, peanuts, cocoa, coffee and oil palm, reaching more than 440,000 direct and indirect beneficiaries between 2026 to 2031.
Angola’s agricultural sector is increasingly exposed to climate shocks, with droughts alone affecting roughly one million people each year and climate-related disasters costing the country nearly US$1.2 billion between 2005 and 2017. At the same time, many smallholder farmers in the eastern region face persistent barriers including limited access to quality inputs, climate-resilient seeds, extension services, and reliable markets—constraints that keep yields and incomes low. GCA supports a detailed climate risk assessment and a robust digitalization approach to strengthen climate-adaptive seed systems, input delivery, market access and resilience-focused training. GCA’s support is designed to ensure that the investment is fully aligned with Angola’s climate risks and rural development needs.
Through its technical assistance, GCA is conducting climate risk and vulnerability assessments to generate risk maps and projections under multiple climate scenarios, informing how climate change may affect priority crops and value chains over time. This work will guide the selection and scaling of climate-smart agriculture options based on technical feasibility, cost-benefit and accessibility for producers. GCA is also analyzing the demand and supply of climate-resilient seeds and reviewing how these seed value chains can be digitalized to improve availability and uptake. Alongside this, GCA is supporting the development of private sector-led input and output markets, including business cases and return-on-investment models to expand Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS) and strengthen market linkages between farmers and off-takers. Digital-enabled market information systems will improve price transparency and trading efficiency, while capacity-building programs for provincial agriculture departments, extension agents, and farmers will help embed climate-resilient practices through farmer field schools and participatory lead-farmer models. These efforts are reinforced by collaboration with CGIAR partners, including IITA/TAAT and IWMI, to scale proven adaptation solutions such as drought-tolerant seed varieties, water-efficient irrigation technologies, remote sensing tools and early-warning platforms.
By 2030, the project is expected to enable more than 116,000 farmers to adopt improved climate-resilient inputs, including micro-irrigation, fertilizer and adaptive seed varieties, with at least half of beneficiaries being women and nearly a third youth. It aims to contribute to 40,000 additional jobs for women and young people across the value chains, expand climate-resilient cultivation across 200,000 hectares of farmland, and establish four agribusiness service centers to strengthen advisory support, private investment, and market access in the four target provinces.
Professor Patrick V. Verkooijen, President and CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, said: “Across Africa, climate change is eroding food security and placing enormous strain on rural livelihoods—but it does not have to be this way. By integrating climate risk analytics, digital advisory tools and climate-resilient technologies into large-scale investments, we can turn vulnerable agricultural systems into engines of resilience and prosperity. Angola has the potential to become a regional leader in climate-smart agriculture, and this partnership with the African Development Bank is a decisive step towards securing that future.”
The Eastern Region Agricultural Value Chain Development Project aligns with Angola’s national development priorities, including Vision 2050, the National Development Plan 2023–2027, PLANAGRAO 2022, and Feed Africa objectives, supporting the Government’s wider push to diversify the economy through resilient, productivity-driven agriculture.
