This policy brief recommends focusing stimulus investment on resilient infrastructure and food security to overcome the COVID-climate crisis. It proposes a set of policy recommendations that bring multiple benefits, a “triple dividend”, to African countries. The first dividend is reduced pandemic risk. The second is climate resilience and the third is strengthened economic recovery. Many adaptation actions also generate significant additional economic, societal, and environmental benefits, which accrue on an ongoing basis starting at the time of investment and are not dependent on the future state of the climate.
These recommendations must be underpinned by multiple stakeholders, including multilateral development banks, working together to effectively mobilise multiple sources of finance, prepare and implement knowledge acceleration programmes, and project preparation tools to increase capacity for more rapid project cycles. In addition, all proposed interventions should make citizens instrumental to the response. This can be achieved through consultations, co-creation, and implementation to build on the increased awareness of the value of the social capital of communities and grassroot organisations.