CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 InternationalBhatasara, SandraNyamwanza, Admire2025-02-122025-02-122018-04-25Bhatasara, S. and Nyamwanza, A. (2018) ‘Sustainability: a missing dimension in climate change adaptation discourse in Africa?’, Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 15(1), pp. 83–97. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2018.1450766.1943-815Xhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/14150https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2018.1450766The climate change adaptation field has evolved considerably in recent years. Important contributions have been made, with scholars developing methods for assessing vulnerability in different countries and communities, documenting broad strategies for adaptation and identifying opportunities for and barriers to adaptation as well as ways to enhance adaptive capacity. Issues of sustainability are, however, not readily argued and embraced. Predominantly, our analysis exposes that current adaptation discourse, particularly in Africa, offers a narrow conceptualisation of sustainability. The paper argues for a clear framework of sustainability in adaptation discourse which encompasses awareness to contextual aspects in responding to climate variability and change as well as resilience aspects. The paper also calls for an expansion of the knowledge base around the concept of ‘climate-smart agriculture’ towards effectively incorporating sustainability aspects in climate change adaptation discourse.83-97en© 2018 the author(s). Published by Informa uK limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Climate ChangeAdaptationSustainabilityResilienceClimate-smart AgricultureArticle