Environment

Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid By Amy Moyi African countries grappling with mounting debt are increasingly struggling to finance climate action leaving vulnerable communities exposed to extreme weather events while limiting investment in sustainable food production, climate and food systems experts have warned. Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid, has highlighted the growing connection between the climate crisis and the debt burden facing countries in the Global South arguing that the two challenges are reinforcing each other and undermining development efforts. Anderson said debt is worsening the climate crisis in three major ways: leaving countries exposed to climate impacts, preventing governments from investing in the transition to sustainable economies and increasing pressure to expand environmentally destructive industries. She argued that addressing the debt crisis including through debt cancellation should be recognised as an important climate solution because governments cannot adequately respond to climate threats when much of their national revenue is committed to servicing loans. Anderson has illustrated the scale of the challenge through examples from across Africa. In Malawi, the government was projected to spend 70 per cent of its national annual budget on debt repayments in 2026 after successive destructive cyclones forced the country to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on recovery. Zambia also spent more than 60 per cent of its government budget and 70 per cent of its revenue on debt repayments leaving only 0.32 per cent of total government expenditure available for climate-related activities. The debt crisis further limited the country’s ability to invest in preparedness and adaptation during droughts experienced in 2024 and 2025. In Senegal, debt servicing was estimated at 600 times government spending on climate action leaving key initiatives aimed at strengthening resilience, improving food security and reducing emissions through agroecology without adequate funding. Similarly in Mozambique, successive cyclones, droughts and floods have pushed the country deeper into debt. Mozambique spent 117 times more on debt repayment than on climate action while facing pressure to exploit its gas resources to meet financial obligations. According to data from Development Finance International’s Debt Watch Database, 93.5 per cent of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are either in debt distress or at risk of falling into it. The analysis further showed that these countries were spending an average of 65 per cent of their national revenues on debt servicing leaving only about a third for public services, development and climate action. In 2026, climate-vulnerable countries were collectively spending nearly 25 times more on debt repayments than on climate action, a situation that threatens their ability to implement even basic climate commitments. As African governments struggle to mobilise resources for climate action, agroecology is emerging as an important approach to strengthening food systems, reducing agricultural production costs and improving household productivity. Evidence presented on Kenya’s household productivity showed that agroecological practices delivered 37.8 per cent higher broad productivity per hectare driven by savings on agricultural input costs. The finding points to the potential economic benefits of farming approaches that reduce dependence on expensive external inputs while making better use of locally available resources. For smallholder farmers, particularly those operating under increasingly unpredictable weather conditions and rising production costs, reducing expenditure on farm inputs can make a significant difference to household incomes and the sustainability of agricultural production. However, agroecology’s contribution to food security goes beyond increasing agricultural productivity or the quantity of food produced. ActionAid Tanzania Country Director Bavon Christopher has called for a shift from measuring food security through calories alone to prioritising access to healthy and diverse diets. ActionAid Tanzania Country Director Bavon Christopher Christopher argued that investment in food systems should extend beyond agricultural production to support the entire food pathway including seed diversity, farmer’s knowledge, post-harvest systems, school meals and public procurement. He emphasised the need to diversify food systems and fund the different stages that determine what food reaches consumers, rather than concentrating resources primarily on increasing production. The approach recognises that food security is not simply about producing more food but also ensuring that households can access nutritious and diverse diets. Agroecology can contribute to this transformation by supporting agricultural diversity, strengthening farmer’s knowledge and reducing dependence on costly external inputs. Christopher also pointed to the gap between African governments agricultural financing commitments and actual budget allocations. Under the Maputo/Malabo Agriculture Target, African countries committed to allocating at least 10 per cent of their total public budgets to agriculture. However, most countries continue to fall short of this target with agroecology receiving only negligible fractions of available agricultural funding. This funding gap raises concerns about the extent to which governments are prioritising sustainable agricultural systems despite their potential contribution to food security, climate resilience and rural livelihoods. The challenge is compounded by debt obligations that leave governments with limited fiscal space to invest in agricultural transformation. Anderson’s highlighted this contradiction through the example of Senegal where government initiatives designed to strengthen resilience, improve food security and reduce emissions through agroecology remain unfunded amid high debt-servicing costs. Together, the findings point to the need for governments to reconsider not only how much they invest in agriculture but also where that money goes and which food systems receive priority.