Extreme Climate Events, Governance Deficits, and Adaptation Failure in Africa: A Policy and Framework Review

Africa accounts for less than four per cent of cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it absorbs some of the most severe consequences of anthropogenic climate change. The literature documenting this disparity has grown substantially over the past decade, but most reviews stop at cataloguing impacts and listing recommendations. This paper goes further. Drawing on a PRISMA 2020-compliant review of 79 peer-reviewed studies and verified institutional reports published between 2019 and 2025, we develop the Africa Climate Resilience and Justice Framework (ACRJF): a four-domain policy architecture designed to address the structural deficits that cause climate adaptation to fail in African contexts. The four domains are the science-policy interface, sectoral adaptation governance, climate finance architecture, and intersectional vulnerability reduction. The framework is grounded in the evidence, not imposed on it: each domain responds directly to a pattern of failure identified across the literature. The paper also applies the framework to all five African sub-regions, showing how domain priorities shift with hazard profile and institutional context. Eight critical evidence and governance gaps are identified. The central argument is that climate resilience in Africa will not be achieved by more knowledge alone, but by institutional reform, redistributive finance, and governance that takes seriously both the evidence and the communities most exposed to harm.