Figure 9.3

Figure 9.3 | Climate-related research on Africa has received a very small percentage (around 4%) of global climate research funding (a).

(b) As a percentage of all research funding allocated to a region, climate research has, since 2010, made up 5% of Africa-related research funding compared to a 3% share for climate research in global research funding.

(c) Major funders are the UK, EU, USA, Germany and Sweden.

(d) Most funding for climate-related research on Africa flows to institutions based in Europe and the USA. Funding comes mainly from government organisations with private philanthropy providing only around 1% (Overland et al., 2021).

(e) Africa-related climate research funding focuses mostly on food systems, ecosystems and freshwater, while health, poverty, security and conflict, and urban areas have received the least.

(f) Research on climate mitigation received only 17% of funding while climate impacts and adaptation each received 40%. A greater proportion of Africa-focused climate funding has gone to social sciences and humanities (28%) than is the case globally (12%) (Overland et al., 2021). Data are from an analysis of 4,458,719 research grants in the Dimensions database with a combined value of USD 1.51 trillion awarded by 521 funding organisations globally (Overland et al. 2021). The Dimensions database is the world’s largest database on research funding flows (Overland et al. 2021). It draws on official data from all major funding organisations in the world, mainly government research councils or similar institutions. Note: The South African National Research Foundation is the only African research funding body that is sufficiently large to be included in Dimensions.