Publication: Growing Resilience: Unlocking the Potential of Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa
Loading...
Other Files
26 downloads
18 downloads
Date
2025-03-14
ISSN
Published
2025-03-14
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report aims to identify strategic actions to increase investment in NBS for climate resilience in SSA by evaluating over a decade of NBS project investment and assessing a range of policy, financial, institutional, social, and technical barriers to adoption. We examined historical and projected data for climate hazards in the region to provide background on the challenges SSA faces. To establish a baseline of the status of NBS in the region and evaluate the types of projects being implemented, this report presents an inventory of NBS projects from across the region that were initiated between 2012 and 2023. In addition, we conducted over 50 interviews with project developers, funders, and investors of NBS projects in SSA to gain insights on the key barriers to NBS project investment and implementation. This report synthesizes results from the analysis and interviews to offer targeted recommendations for how actors such as governments and multilateral organizations can effectively scale up NBS in the region.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Collins, N.; van Zanten, B.; Onah, I.; Marsters, L.; Jungman, L.; Hunter, R.; von Turkovich, N.; Anderson, J.; Vidad, G.; Gartner, T.; Jongmanrtner, B.. 2025. Growing Resilience: Unlocking the Potential of Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42952 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Nature-Based Solutions for Improving Resilience in the Caribbean(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-01)Sustainable management of environment and natural resources is essential for the long-term and sustainable growth of key economic sectors, such as fisheries, forestry or tourism, across the Caribbean. In addition to being important generators of GDP and beneficial to the human well-being overall, natural resources also provide a range of ecosystem services that play a critical role in the Caribbean countries’ efforts to reduce disaster risks and adapt to mounting climate change risks. The region is facing a number of challenges in this area, including the climate change impacts, limited access to financing, and narrow fiscal space, among others. Such challenges are being exacerbated by the unprecedented health, economic and social impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. However, with great challenges come great opportunities, including to grow and shift the development pathway into a green recovery, based on the richness of the natural resources and biodiversity that this region possesses.Publication Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Resilience in the World Bank Portfolio(Washington DC, 2023-03-21)Countries are facing increasingly complex climate-related challenges, which undermine resilience and require integrated and innovative solutions. Nature-based solutions (NBS) have emerged as cost-effective alternatives to conventional gray infrastructure, delivering greater resilience in the longer term and providing a host of additional benefits. NBSs are defined as actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services and resilience and biodiversity benefits. NBSs that are used with the explicit objective of reducing climate and disaster risks are called NBS for climate resilience. Related terms could include eco-DRR (disaster risk reduction), NBS for disaster risk management, or ecosystem-based adaptation. However, NBSs for climate resilience also provide other benefits such as provision of food or drinking water or opportunities for recreation and climate regulation. NBSs for climate resilience are applied across different geographies. As GPNBS scales-up its effort to provide targeted support to World Bank task teams and clients, monitoring and tracking the NBS footprint in the World Bank’s portfolio will remain a key tool. This paper aims to inform World Bank and GFDRR leadership, donors, clients, and the global community on the World Bank’s progress in mainstreaming NBS for climate resilience, and to inform decisions on targeting capacity building efforts and technical support to operations.Publication Sierra Leone Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-13)The Sierra Leone Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) analyzes Sierra Leone’s socioeconomic development prospects in the context of climate change. It provides an overview of the climate and development risks facing Sierra Leone, models scenarios of select climate effects and adaptation, and proposes strategies to enhance resilience, steer the economy toward inclusive, low-carbon growth, and finance climate actions.Publication Investing In Nature as a Climate and Development Opportunity for Mongolia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-31)This policy note synthesizes the results of collaboration between the Government of Mongolia (GoM) and the World Bank that produced a body of analytic and advisory work that can be used to generate policy-relevant knowledge to manage and finance Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to address development and climate change challenges. The Note highlights key policy messages to harness the potential of NbS in Mongolia. Its key audience is the new Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MECC), the National Forestry Agency (NFA), the Ministry of Economy and Development (MED), and the Ministry of Finance, in addition to development partners, local governments, relevant nongovernmental organizations, and private sector players. To generate policy-relevant knowledge, the Note identifies the development and climate co-benefits of NbS, demonstrates that this potential is possible but will involve a combination of public and private sector initiatives and efforts, identifies institutional and regulatory gaps, and suggests ways forward. The note also suggests a process that starts with policy but supports implementation and scale-up through institution, capacity building, and investment at the landscape level using various funding mechanisms.Publication The Fragility and Resilience of Nations(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-03)Climate change will impose large and differentiated tolls across countries. This paper suggests that economic fragility and resilience against climate change-driven natural shocks are shaped by: (i) the elasticity of input substitution in resource-intensive sectors, (ii) the trade regime, and (iii) the property rights regime in nature-based assets. Using a structural transformation model, the paper shows, inter alia, that openness increases resilience against natural shocks, regardless of the property right regime. Additionally, openness reduces fragility when a social planner internalizes the social cost of natural resource degradation. However, it increases fragility in a decentralized economy with incomplete property rights in nature-based assets.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Error: Could not load results for 'https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/item/relateditemlistconfigs/ed023e93-3872-474c-b67b-4a19f6f857e8_downloads/itemlist'.