IFAD at COP27

UN Climate Change Conference | 7-18 November 2022, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt

For many years, IFAD has advocated and provided funding for climate finance and adaptation. We will continue to do so at COP27, using this opportunity to amplify the voices of small-scale producers and promote their role in climate change responses and resilient food systems.

Small-scale farmers produce up to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries but receive less than 1.7 per cent of climate finance. To eradicate poverty and food insecurity—and secure a brighter, greener future for all—small-scale farmers must be brought in to the centre of climate change discussions.
 

Daily sessions

Day 1
Tuesday, 8 November

Private Sector Financing for Adaptation with Citi and CDPQ

14:00-15:00 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

Practical solutions are needed to move private sector financing for adaption from idea to action. This event will discuss key policies, financial instruments and project design support needed.

The Abidjan Legacy Programme

15:00-16:00 Cairo time

Language: English, French

The Abidjan Legacy Programme, launched in May 2022, aims to boost sustainability across major value chains, protect and restore forests and lands, and improve communities’ resilience to climate change. At this event, the Vice President of Côte d’Ivoire and other panellists will call for action on climate resilience and sustainable commodity value chains in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond.

Africa Green Finance Coalition Launch

16:00-17:00 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

This event will be a call to action for African governments to join the new Africa Green Finance Coalition. It will highlight the challenges in addressing the climate funding gap and discuss how, through the AGFC, African governments can scale up the flow of green finance in the continent.

Day 2
Wednesday, 9 November - Finance Day

Loss and Damage: Why land rights matter in resilience and recovery

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, French, Spanish

Despite escalating loss and damage, little consolidated action is being taken to address it in a systematic way. This event will highlight aspects of land rights in loss and damage and its importance in assessing compensation, mobilising finance and building resilience.  

Scaling Up Inclusive Green Financing Mechanisms in the Great Green Wall 

14:30-15:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English

This event will explore different investment models to de-risk mobilizing green funds, blended finance and private investments into rural SMEs. Expanding green markets and increasing sustainable and climate resilient income and job opportunities will also be discussed.

Catalyzing Investments for Resilient Smallholder Agriculture 

16:30-17:30 Cairo time Register

There is a significant financing gap for climate-smart agriculture. However, innovative financing models are being developed to address barriers and scale climate finance for smallholder agriculture and agri-SMEs.

Day 3
Thursday, 10 November - Science and Youth and Future Generations Day

Where Climate and Conflict Meet: Evidence on adaptation and resilience-building in multi-hazard environments 

10.30-11.30 Cairo time Register

Languages: Arabic, English, French

By 2030, two-thirds of the extreme poor will live in fragile and conflict-affected states. As climate change interacts with fragility drivers, conflict can intensify. This event will highlight the climate-conflict nexus, present the evidence and discuss how to build effective resilience and climate adaptation projects in a multi-hazard context.

60 Minutes to Change Your Mind About Eating Insects

14:15-15:15 Cairo time Register

Languages: English

Eating insects is a common practice around the world. Come to learn and taste how edible insects can diversify our diets, provide a sustainable, nutrient dense, and delicious protein source, and provide livelihoods for people. Can our expert panel transform your perception?

Harnessing voices of rural youth for a greener future: A multi-sensory game show

16.00-17.00 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, French

A multi-sensory, immersive experience will connect the audience with the lives and ambitions of youth innovators, leaders and activists. The game show will question panellists on how they would promote greening economies while strengthening social justice.

Nexus on Water Food & Energy: Food pillar towards a transformational rural development programme

17:30-18:15 Cairo time

Languages: English

This event will showcase the partnership between the Government of Egypt and IFAD on the Nexus of Water, Food and Energy Programme. The potential to replicate the approach in Africa and modalities of blending climate finance will be explored.

Day 4
Friday, 11 November - Decarbonisation Day

Innovating for Climate Resilience: From monitoring rangelands to carbon trading

10.30-11.30 Cairo time Register

Languages: Arabic (Sudanese dialect), English

Pastures in Sudan are degrading. IFAD and Soilwatch will use remote sensing and soil analysis to estimate the carbon storage potential of restored rangelands through good grazing practices. This allows pastoralists and community members to connect with the carbon market and profit from the sustainable management of communal rangelands.

CompensACTION: Making compensation mechanisms work for small-scale agricultural producers

14.30-15.30 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

The G7 Food Security Working Group believes that agricultural producers, especially smallholders in developing countries, should receive adequate compensation for their services. This means creating incentive systems that complement revenues from market prices with compensation for generating positive externalities.

Agroforestry-based carbon markets: What are the opportunities for small-scale producers?

16:30-17:30 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

The session will focus on opportunities for small-scale producers to access voluntary carbon markets by promoting diversified agroforestry systems, enhancing climate adaptation and mitigation, and scaling up agroforestry.

Day 5
Saturday, 12 November - Adaptation, Agriculture, & Food Systems Day

Building Resilience, Informed by Data: Lessons from IFAD's Resilience Design and Monitoring Tool

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English

IFAD's Resilience Design and Monitoring Tool (RDMT) improves targeting and maximizes the impact of resilience-building investments. This event will present RDMT results from projects in Kenya and the Dominican Republic. Participants will learn how to use the tool, generate and analyze data, and combine the tool with others to maximize its potential.

Recovery. Rebuilding. Resilience. Rural women on the frontlines of the global economic, food and climate crisis

12:15-13.00 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

The road to resilient futures runs through rural agricultural areas. This panel, moderated by UN Goodwill Ambassador Sabrina Dhowre Elba, will explore why investing in one of Africa’s most underutilized assets—rural women and girls—is key to winning the fight against food insecurity and climate change.

Climate Change and Healthy Diets: What will we be eating in the future?

14:30-15:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: Arabic, French

Foods and diets have different emission and resource footprints. Climate change impacts nutrition through decreased food quantity, quality and diversity of food. Innovative and sustainable food systems are needed to respond to the impacts of climate change while increasing productivity, improving diets, including vulnerable groups and sustaining biodiversity.

Greening the Drylands in Africa

16:30-17:30 Cairo time Register

Resilient Food Systems enhance dryland productivity and investments for advancing the food security and livelihoods of those exposed to climate change. This event will highlight innovative approaches and successes in Niger and Tanzania.

Day 6
Monday, 14 November - Gender and Water Day

The Untold Stories of Climate Justice: From Indigenous Peoples to Land Rights

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, Spanish

Climate justice means ensuring the adverse impacts of climate change don’t disproportionately affect those who have contributed the least to it while also being the least equipped to cope with its effects. This event will tell the untold stories of those most affected by the climate crisis and climate injustice.

Making climate change investments work for vulnerable communities

14:30-15:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish

Combining biophysical and hard infrastructure can help avoid mal-adaptation. This event will highlight the nexus between restoration and sustainable management of degraded lands, enhanced resilience of infrastructure and food security.

Virtual Field Visit: How IFAD is building climate resilience by empowering indigenous farming in Peru

16:30-17:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, Spanish

Showcasing IFAD's climate resilience work in the Peruvian Amazon, this event focuses on female empowerment and indigenous peoples. The Awajun women's organization "El Bosque de las Nuwas" ("Women's Forest") will share their ancestral traditions and experience working with IFAD to reforest and use drip irrigation to overcome droughts.

Day 7
Tuesday, 15 November - Action for Climate Empowerment and Energy Day

Disability, food security and climate change: The need for inclusive action 

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, International Sign Language

Persons with disabilities living in rural areas are more likely to be food insecure and are at higher risk of the adverse impacts of climate change. To build climate resilience and alleviate poverty and food insecurity, the rights of persons with disabilities must be included. Speakers will share evidence, insights, experiences and takeaways for inclusive action.

Day 8
Wednesday, 16 November - Biodiversity Day

Natural Capital for Sustainable Livelihoods: Leading the way on ambitious climate change action in Latin America

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: English, Spanish

Nature-based solutions are an essential response to climate change. This ministerial level panel will showcase how Latin American countries are preserving the natural resource base for sustainable livelihoods and demonstrating the feasibility of such actions.

Beyond Listening In: Bringing Rural Voices to COP27

14:30-15:30 Cairo time Register

Languages: Arabic, English, French

Small-holder producers feed a third of our planet yet face significant barriers to participating in decision-making. Leaders at COP can hear directly from the people impacted as a rural farmer and entrepreneur shares how climate change has impacted her life.

Day 9
Thursday, 17 November - Solutions Day

Strengthening farmers’ resilience through climate risk insurance: Who pays and how? 

10:30-11:30 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

The simple question of ‘who pays for climate risk insurance’ has many answers. In the Global South, governments face budget constraints and most smallholder farmers cannot afford it. This panel will discuss the pros and cons of subsidizing insurance, private sector pre-financing and other opportunities.

Tackling Extreme Poverty and Climate Change Together: Solutions from the Global South

14.30-15:30 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English, French

IFAD’s Rural Resilience Programme promotes resilience and sustainably reduces extreme poverty and hunger. This panel will share knowledge and success stories, focusing on those furthest behind who are living in extreme poverty and in fragile, remote or drought- and flood-prone areas.

Helping Smallholders Adapt: Inclusive financial innovation and smallholder investments 

16:30-17:30 Cairo time Webcast Register

Languages: English

Climate change disrupts food systems and security. Critical elements for smallholder climate adaptation range from productivity to market access to policy. Financing models that employ blended finance, de-risking tools and technology are key to advancing smallholder climate adaptation finance.

Highlights

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At COP27, we need big wins for a greener future, says IFAD President

Ahead of this year’s COP, President Lario shares three big wins for the planet that can mitigate climate change and help the world’s poorest rural people adapt to its inevitable impacts.

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The planet is awash with climate disasters. Meet the rural people battling to endure them

One year on from the biggest global commitment to financing climate adaptation at COP26, we are yet to see the actions needed to follow through on this promise. 

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COP: Where does it come from and where is it going?

COP is an annual meeting where decision makers discuss how best to tackle climate change. But how did the summit come to be and what difference does it make for rural people? Find out here.

Stories and blogs

Cooking at the top of the world: A family in Nepal share their story of climate resilience with Meteorologist Clare Nasir

November 2022 - BLOG

Meteorologist Clare Nasir travels to Nepal where she shares a homecooked meal with a local family and discovers how rural farming communities are adapting to the threat of climate change.

Mind the Gap: Climate adaptation is falling far short of needs

November 2022 - BLOG

To respond to the impacts of climate change that are already happening around us every day, we urgently need to invest in climate adaptation. UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report identifies the gap between where we are and where we need to be. Jo Puri shares her impressions on what this year’s report reveals.

Why climate finance matters: Your questions answered

November 2022 - STORY

Climate finance is complicated, and we get a lot of questions about everything it entails. We’ve put together some answers to the ones we receive most often.

Climate finance keeps carbon where it belongs: underground

November 2022 - STORY

Climate finance is essential to prevent the worst-case climate scenarios from happening and to protect the most vulnerable people from a climate breakdown.

Financing resilience: how ASAP+ is helping rural communities adapt to climate change

November 2022 - STORY

When it comes to climate change, small-scale farmers are among the world’s most vulnerable communities. This is why IFAD focuses on climate resilient agriculture and climate finance through programmes like ASAP+.

Four ways small-scale fishers can help us weather the climate storm

November 2022 - STORY

Climate change and environmental degradation are posing an unprecedented threat to the world. Find out how small-scale fishers are weathering the storm – and becoming part of the solution.

 

News

European Investment Bank confirms EUR 500 million loan to IFAD to invest in global food security

November 2022 - NEWS

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and IFAD have signed their first financial agreement today. The EIB will lend IFAD EUR 500 million in support of IFAD’s programme of targeted loans that aim to improve food security and reduce poverty in rural areas. The new EIB financing will strengthen IFAD’s urgent response to assist small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change and cope with the current global food, fertiliser, and fuel crisis.

Small-scale farmers are vital to feeding West and Central Africa and transforming food systems

November 2022 - NEWS

On 16 November 2022, IFAD will convene policy-makers, development practitioners, rural producers and farmers organizations at its second Farmers Forum in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire to explore opportunities to strengthen partnerships between them. Together, they can work jointly for sustainable transformation of food systems and food security.

Norway pledges an additional US$9.5 million to climate adaptation for small-scale farmers

November 2022 - NEWS

As part of a commitment to triple its support to climate adaptation by 2026, Norway has pledged an additional NOK 100 million (approximately US$9.5 million) contribution of urgently needed climate finance to IFAD today.

Adapt or starve: Press conference with IFAD Goodwill Ambassador Sabrina Dhowre Elba at COP 27

November 2022 - NEWS

As climate negotiations enter a second week of crucial discussions at COP27 in Egypt, Sabrina Dhowre Elba, IFAD Goodwill Ambassador, shines a spotlight on the food security crisis in the Horn of Africa and advocates for increased investments to help small-scale farmers adapt to climate change.

IFAD to lead the food pillar of Egypt’s Nexus for Water, Food and Energy (NWFE)

November 2022 - NEWS

The Government of Egypt has selected IFAD to lead a multi-billion dollar food and agriculture pillar.  NWFE is part of Egypt’s bold move to launch its first National Climate Change Strategy 2050.

Placing small-scale farmers and rural populations at the heart of climate discussions - IFAD at COP 27

November 2022 - NEWS

To ensure small-scale farmers and rural populations from developing countries receive the attention and funding they urgently need, IFAD is organising, and will be active in, over twenty events at COP27 to highlight the challenges and solutions that small-scale farmers need to feed a growing population while adapting to the escalating impacts of climate change.   

The UN’s Agricultural Development Fund finds that its investments in small-scale farming are net negative - according to new report

November 2022 - NEWS

New research shows that investments in small-scale farmers and poor rural populations in developing countries over 20 years by IFAD sequestered more carbon and reduced more greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions than they emitted, proving to be effective in limiting climate change.

Publications

Media contact

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Caroline Chaumont


+39 3316370953