Summary: Motivation: Communities across the global south use their rich indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) to predict weather events and climate hazards. ILK may assist efforts to address climate change challenges in Africa and make subsequent decisions regarding climate adaptation.Purpose: The article documents evidence of the ILK's potential in reducing vulnerability to climate change and/or improving the resilience of communities. The study also reflects on major barriers that hinder the improved mainstreaming of ILK into adaptation strategies.Methods and approach: The present study uses two main methods: a literature review and a presentation of case studies from a sample of African countries where ILK informs adaptation options, including indigenous land‐tenure practices and weather prediction. The selected case studies highlight the historical legacy of ILK and its effectiveness in reducing vulnerability and the impacts of climate change.Findings: The results indicate that, despite being acknowledged as a valuable resource for climate adaptation, current national adaptation policies on the African continent still show serious gaps in effectively integrating ILK systems within the legal frameworks to reduce vulnerability.Policy implications: ILK should be better integrated with modern climate change adaptation strategies to anticipate more effective responses. Both rural communities and relevant government agencies should complement the use of ILK with climate change strategies, so as to maximize its contribution to the effective implementation of climate change policies.

The adoption of appropriate technologies in small-scale farming is an important response to the effects of climate change and variability, especially in Africa. This study investigates the levels of awareness and adoption of some appropriate technologies at two pairs of sites matched for rainfall, but differing in temperature, in semi-arid and sub-humid regions of Kenya. The pairs were also subsequently matched to form cool and warm regions. The study used participatory methods consisting of 20 focus-group discussions and data from 722 randomly sampled households from the two regions. The descriptive and inferential results show that there was a high level of awareness of appropriate technologies but low rates of adoption in all regions. Even though gender did not influence awareness of the technologies, it had a positive correlation with adoption of the technologies. There was a difference in adoption of between male-headed households and female-headed households at a 1% level of significance. Technology knowledge and use were higher in the semi-arid and warm regions than in the sub-humid and cool regions, with farmer-to-farmer learning being the most prominent source of information. There was a difference in the use of technologies which have a positive impact in regions with high temperatures at a 1% level of significance. A higher percentage of farmers used water harvesting, reduced tillage, crop rotation, green manure and used mulches in the warm regions compared to cool regions. The trend in awareness and adoption assumed a gender and an ecological dimension in favour of males, in both semi-arid regions and warm regions.

The past years were marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic downfall, the 5th anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement, and the end of the African Women’s Decade. According to the latest projections, African countries will continue to face increasing inequalities, as well as risks to human health, water and food security, due to climate change. African countries are also struggling to reduce gender-related power imbalances in adaptation and mitigation that magnify existing vulnerabilities, particularly those of women. Therefore, any advances made in this narrative are significant. This paper investigates the needs and potential for gender-balanced leadership/empowerment in adaptation and mitigation based on climate change experts’ views on the advances made in Africa. This is complemented by a bibliometric analysis of the literature published on the topic between the years 2015 and 2022. The study suggests that although women’s influence on climate change related decisions is growing, a series of barriers need to be overcome, among which are lack of knowledge and political will. The COVID-19 pandemic is seen as having both positive and negative potentials for gender-balanced leadership/empowerment. The findings provide a premise for identifying possible directions of further actions towards gender-balanced leadership/empowerment in climate change in African countries.