When the rains come now, they no longer fall - they strike. They beat against tin roofs, turn roads into rivers, and leave children staring at what used to be their schools. Then the skies clear, and drought returns. In one season, Africa can swing from too much water to none at all. We have become a continent living between disasters.
According to the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2025 , the world is providing just 26bn a year to help vulnerable nations adapt to the climate crisis - a figure that actually fell from 28bn in 2022. Meanwhile, developing countries collectively need between 310bn and 365bn every year by 2035 just to cope. Africa alone needs 51bn annually, yet it receives barely 12.9bn. Numbers can sound abstract, but each missing dollar is a farm unprotected, a coastline unshielded, a life left in the path of a storm.
At COP30 in Belm, the world gathers once again - this time under the banner of adaptation. Brazil's presidency calls it "the COP of adaptation . " For Africa, it must be more than a slogan. It must be the summit where words turn into survival.