From Plans to Practice: Portfolio Evidence on Climate Resilience in African Transport Infrastructure

From Plans to Practice: Portfolio Evidence on Climate Resilience in African Transport Infrastructure
Africa’s transport infrastructure faces rising exposure to flooding, coastal erosion, sea-level rise and extreme heat. This submission draws on A Decade on the Move: Evaluation of the African Development Bank's Support for the Transport Sector (2012–2023), a formally released independent evaluation of 258 interventions and nearly UA 14 billion in approvals, roads accounting for 70% of value.

The evaluation applied a theory-based mixed-methods approach, combining portfolio and document reviews, interviews, and site visits; six country and five regional case studies; two cluster evaluations, covering 36 port, road, rail and aviation projects, and a dedicated thematic study on climate resilience.

Adaptation is increasingly designed into transport assets through engineering and nature-based flood-management, coastal-protection and port upgrades addressing marine erosion and storm surge. Integration is nonetheless uneven. No climate-risk assessment or resilient-design standard is consistently applied; monitoring of high-risk assets is often absent; and mitigation received less attention than adaptation. Wider sustainability evidence also showed that weak maintenance financing, governance and institutional capacity can erode resilience gains over time.

The evaluation highlights four priorities for moving from plans to practice: transport-specific climate-risk assessment and design standards; stronger monitoring of high-risk assets; sustained institutional capacity and knowledge exchange; and maintenance systems that protect resilience throughout the infrastructure life cycle. These lessons are relevant to governments, regional organizations, development finance institutions and transport agencies seeking to translate climate commitments into sustainable transport infrastructure outcomes.