For decades, Africa has stood on the edge of the global climate-finance conversation, seen more as a vulnerable landscape than a central participant in shaping solutions. The Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2025 signals a profound shift. The world’s climate-finance river, once meandering, is finally beginning to swell and redirect its course towards the developing world, Africa included. The Yearbook reveals that developing countries are receiving notably more funding than in previous years, and Africa, long burdened by climate consequences it did not create, is increasingly at the heart of this renewed flow of global responsibility.
One of the strongest indicators of changing fortunes lies in the rise of international clean-energy finance for developing countries. The Yearbook confirms that such financing rose from USD 12.14 billion in 2015 to USD 21.57 billion in 2022, outlining a decisive upward trend. Africa remains the region with the largest share of people without electricity, over 600 million, and this persistent energy deficit has placed the continent at the centre of global concern. While the world’s population without electricity has dropped from 957.5 million to roughly 666 million, Africa continues to dominate this figure.
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As a result, more international institutions, development agencies, and climate actors now view Africa as one of the most important regions for clean-energy investment. The report highlights that Africa’s energy investment per capita is still six times lower than the global average, making these rising funding flows not merely supportive, but urgently necessary.
Africa’s evolving financial landscape is reinforced by the significant rise in international support for climate planning. According to the Yearbook, 85 developing countries have received capacity-building assistance to prepare updated Nationally Determined Contributions, while 70 countries have been supported in developing or strengthening their National Adaptation Plans. Given that nearly all African states fall under the developing-country category, this expansion reflects a broader effort to help African governments organise their climate strategies, improve absorption of climate finance, and establish administrative structures capable of managing long-term environmental commitments.
Wells That Are Filling Faster Than Before
One of the most encouraging developments captured in the Yearbook is the increase in readiness support provided through the Green Climate Fund. The Fund’s readiness and preparatory assistance rose from USD 631 million in 2023, covering 798 country requests to USD 752.84 million by 2025, supporting 874 requests across 142 countries. African nations have historically been among the largest recipients of GCF readiness assistance, relying on such funding to build national systems for climate governance, transparency, monitoring, and project development. The rise in these allocations gives African countries a stronger foundation from which to attract and manage larger climate-finance investments.
Shifts in global climate-finance architecture are also propelling Africa forward. Development Finance Institutions are becoming more attentive to adaptation finance. The Adaptation and Resilience Investors Collaborative, which started with no DFI involvement in 2020 had grown to two members by 2023 and is projected to reach five participating DFIs by 2026, all with a sharpened focus on vulnerable regions. Given Africa’s acute exposure to droughts, cyclones, rising temperatures and food-system stress, the continent is expected to be a major beneficiary of this trend.
Private capital mobilisation is also gaining traction. New collaborative investment models such as the SDG Impact Finance Initiative, which mobilised USD 41.5 million in 2024, and the Investment Mobilisation Collaboration Alliance, which mobilised USD 10 million in 2024, are beginning to channel funding to African projects. Though these sums remain modest when compared with Africa’s vast adaptation and mitigation needs, they mark a shift from grant-focused approaches to investment-oriented strategies, signals of growing confidence in Africa’s climate-transition market.
A Continent Standing in the Eye of the Storm, Yet Rising
Beyond finance for mitigation, adaptation financing has also gained ground. Under the Race to Resilience initiative, USD 4.2 billion has been deployed to support resilience efforts that benefit vulnerable communities, many of them in Africa. These investments cover agriculture, urban resilience, nature-based approaches, and protection of livelihoods threatened by climate shocks.
This increase is part of a broader global financial transformation. Climate finance worldwide has expanded dramatically, rising from USD 364 billion in 2011 to USD 1.3 trillion in 2023. Public climate finance reached USD 650 billion in the same year. Africa, which historically struggled to draw even a small portion of global funds, now finds itself in a period when the broader financial landscape is expanding rapidly and becoming more accessible.
Pathways Opening Where Barriers Once Stood
The Yearbook also points to the rising global investment in zero-carbon solutions, with financing in this area more than doubling in 2021. Africa is increasingly being considered within these global transitions, as international partners recognise that the continent cannot remain excluded if the world is to meet its climate goals. Similarly, the Yearbook notes that 73 per cent of G20 public finance institutions now include social-protection conditions in their fossil-fuel transition support, a feature that helps ensure African countries pursuing energy transitions do not compromise livelihoods in the process.
A Future No Longer Deferred
Taken together, the data from the Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2025 reflect an evolving trajectory, one in which Africa is no longer merely a footnote in global climate finance, but a region increasingly recognised as indispensable to the world’s climate future. The continent’s vulnerability has long been clear, but its potential, its renewable energy capacity, its natural resources, and its demographic strength are now drawing more attention from development banks, climate funds, and private investors.
The journey ahead remains long. Funding, although rising, still lags far behind Africa’s needs. But the tides are shifting. The world’s climate-finance river is swelling, its tributaries widening, and its currents beginning to flow with more direction and determination towards a continent that has waited far too long.
Africa, once walking a lonely road, now moves forward with greater support at its side—and with a future that feels a little less distant, and a little more possible.
