African Nations Unite in Addis Ababa to Boost Climate Resilience Measurement

A major step toward strengthening Africa’s capacity to measure and monitor resilience against climate and socioeconomic shocks was taken today as statisticians, policy experts, and technical officers from 27 African countries gathered in the Ethiopian capital for a three-day regional workshop.

The event, jointly organized by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is designed to prepare member states for the final biennial review of the Malabo Declaration, a landmark continental commitment to transform African agriculture by 2025.

Building Capacity for Resilience Monitoring

In his opening remarks, Koffi Amegbeto, FAO Senior Policy Officer, described the workshop as “a milestone in our shared journey to strengthen resilience analysis across Africa.” He emphasized that enhancing the technical skills and systems for measuring resilience will help countries not only design better agricultural and climate adaptation policies, but also monitor their effectiveness over time.

Dr. Janet Edeme, Head of the Rural Economy Division at the AUC, stressed the workshop’s strategic importance as the continent transitions from the Malabo Declaration era to the Kampala Declaration and new CAADP Strategy. She called for institutionalizing proven tools such as the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) framework so that countries can independently track resilience in years to come.

Focus on Malabo Indicator 6.1.i

The training centres on indicator 6.1.i of the Malabo targets — the percentage of farmers, pastoralists, and fisherfolk who have improved their resilience to climate change and other shocks. This forms a key part of Commitment 6 of the Declaration, which focuses on enhancing resilience to climate variability.

Participants are receiving hands-on instruction in data cleaning, validation, and indicator estimation using the FAO-developed RIMA methodology. Since its introduction in 2008, RIMA has been widely adopted across Africa and globally to assess resilience, track changes over time, and adapt programmes accordingly.

From Zero Reporting to Continental Progress

FAO’s collaboration with the AUC has already delivered substantial results. When the Malabo Declaration was first reviewed in 2017, not a single country reported data on indicator 6.1.i, largely due to capacity and data availability gaps. By 2023, 34 countries had reported, enabling the inclusion of the indicator in the scoring for Commitment 6.

Following a targeted sub-regional training initiative in 2024, 11 countries successfully calculated and validated their resilience indicator for the first time. This Addis Ababa workshop is intended to build on that progress, equipping all 27 participating countries with the necessary skills ahead of the 2025 Biennial Review, the fifth and final assessment under the Malabo framework.

Towards the Post-Malabo Era

Adopted in 2014 by African Heads of State and Government, the Malabo Declaration committed member states to ambitious targets: halving poverty, ending hunger, and boosting resilience by 2025. The Biennial Review process tracks progress against seven commitments, and this year’s event in Addis Ababa is a crucial last push to ensure that resilience — a historically underreported metric — is accurately captured.

The workshop also lays the groundwork for resilience monitoring beyond 2025, ensuring that tools, methodologies, and institutional knowledge are carried forward into the Kampala CAADP Strategy.

“This is not just about reporting for a target year,” Amegbeto noted. “It’s about embedding resilience thinking into our agricultural and climate policies for decades to come.”

As the countdown to the final Malabo review continues, the Addis Ababa workshop symbolizes both the progress made and the commitment to sustain momentum in building a climate-resilient future for Africa’s farmers, herders, and fishing communities.