AFRICA’S MOMENT AT COP30: SHAPING THE GLOBAL GOAL ON ADAPTATION INDICATORS FOR JUSTICE, RESILIENCE AND REAL ACTION

At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, adaptation is finally centrestage. This conference marks a political crossroads for climate-vulnerable nations, especially across Africa. Two milestones are on the line: the finalisation of indicators to track progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), and the long-overdue delivery of the Glasgow commitment to double adaptation finance by 2025. For the Global South, this is a survival mechanism, a kind of Southern Cross guiding those most exposed to climate shocks toward a more resilient future. But it’s also a test of whether the global community truly intends to make adaptation a shared responsibility, not just a polite conversation topic for diplomats 

Let’s start this article with a question: What indicators should the world use to measure progress toward adaptation? Yes, we know, that sounds bureaucratic; but it is an important one because these indicators will decide how the world defines success, and who gets left behind. The Global Goal on Adaptation and its 11 targets, outlined under the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, cover everything from food security to infrastructure, water, and health systems, but without meaningful indicators, the framework risks becoming a well-written promise with no teeth. The choice of indicators will determine what counts as progress, who is held accountable, and how finance and support flow, or fail to. For Africa, this is where the politics meet the lived experience. The continent’s economies, ecosystems, and social systems are already stretched thin by climate disruption. Yet adaptation indicators must go beyond counting physical infrastructure or hectares of reforested land. They must measure whether communities are genuinely safer, more food-secure, healthier, and better equipped to withstand the next drought, flood, or storm. 

Africa insists that these indicators reflect the continent’s priorities, not some external notion of “compliance.” Adaptation should be measured in terms of development outcomes, or how much they advance the right to development, strengthen livelihoods, and enhance local resilience. Indicators should capture whether smallholder farmers can still grow crops when the rains fail, whether urban poor communities have access to clean water during heatwaves, and whether women and youth, often the first responders to climate shocks, are empowered, not marginalised. Flexibility is essential. No single indicator can fit all countries, much less all communities. Each nation must be able to disaggregate and adapt the metrics to its own context, recognising that resilience in Nairobi looks different from resilience in Niamey or Nouakchott. The GGA indicators must, thus, be globally relevant but locally grounded. 

Linking indicators to Means of Implementation 

Here lies the crux of the matter: adaptation without finance is fiction. For the GGA to work, the indicators cannot just measure vulnerability or resilience outcomes; they must also track the means of implementation (MoI), or the flow of finance, technology, and capacity-building support promised under Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Paris Agreement. This is non-negotiable. Without indicators that explicitly monitor both the provision and receipt of support from developed to developing countries, Africa risks ending up with an elegant system for measuring needs, not meeting them. Moreover, the indicators should be tied to a new finance commitment or a clear process to assess the cost of achieving each of the GGA’s thematic and dimensional targets. Without this link, the GGA could easily become another unfunded mandate; ambitious on paper but hollow in practice. To prevent that, Africa wants the GGA indicators to connect directly with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance, thus measurement of adaptation outcomes must be inseparable from predictable, accessible, and grant-based funding. Anything less would be another act of climate injustice. 

Beyond COP30, the Baku Adaptation Roadmap (BAR) offers an opening to turn the GGA from framework to function, and Africa wants to use this platform to push for a formal process to review, refine, and operationalise the indicators well beyond Belém. This process should be guided by clear timelines and modalities to ensure that as climate science evolves, so do our tools for measuring progress. More importantly, the indicators must be seamlessly integrated into national processes such as National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs). Only by aligning international frameworks with domestic planning systems can we ensure that reporting drives real change rather than just paperwork. The BAR can also play a crucial role in coordination, linking the dots between the GGA, the Nairobi Work Programme, the Adaptation Committee, and country-level efforts. That coordination should come with practical guidance on embedding indicators into national systems and strengthening institutional capacity to track and report progress. 

Justice, inclusion, and locally led action 

If adaptation is to be meaningful, it must also be just. The GGA indicator framework must capture cross-cutting vulnerabilities such as gender, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, children and youth, local communities, and racial or ethnic dimensions. Africa demands that the Baku Roadmap embeds equity at its core. This means ensuring the meaningful participation of civil society and the most vulnerable groups in shaping and applying the indicators. Local organisations and community networks are often best placed to generate and interpret adaptation data, yet they are rarely funded or involved in official monitoring systems. Data collection must be disaggregated by gender, Indigenous identity or income and geography so that what is measured actually reflects who benefits. And locally led adaptation (LLA) must be recognised not just as a buzzword, but as a measurable outcome. Indicators should track community participation, inclusion, and empowerment, not just the existence of national policies or donor-funded projects. 

It’s worth remembering that the Global Goal on Adaptation was, in many ways, an African idea, the brainchild of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN). It was born out of Africa’s recognition that adaptation could no longer remain the neglected twin of mitigation in global climate governance. Now, Africa has the responsibility — and the opportunity — to ensure that the GGA lives up to its promise. That means fighting for indicators that are flexible, inclusive, and dynamic enough to capture not just physical resilience but also the social systems that make long-term adaptation possible. The indicators must reflect the full picture of resilience, from flood-resistant infrastructure to climate-smart agriculture, from health systems able to handle vector-borne diseases to empowered communities driving local solutions. At COP30, Africa’s negotiators are clear that adaptation progress cannot be measured by spreadsheets in Geneva or Brasília, but by the lived realities of people in Garissa, Goma, and Gaborone. 

COP30 is a test of global political will. The world cannot continue to promise adaptation finance while delivering loans or counting reallocated development aid as new support. The Glasgow commitment to double adaptation finance by 2025 must be honoured in full, transparently, and with grants, not debt. If the final GGA indicators fail to reflect African realities, and if they are not linked to meaningful finance, the entire framework risks becoming another symbol of good intentions lost in translation. But if Africa’s voice carries through in Belém, the continent could help shape an adaptation regime that measures what truly matters: resilience, justice, and shared responsibility.