<p>The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus approach offers an effective framework for promoting sustainability, while enabling communities to adapt to climate change risks in the WEF sector in Africa. It requires a coordinated, collaborative, an integrated and unsiloed approach to climate change adaptation innovation and related intellect property (IP) to maximise synergies and minimise trade-offs across the WEF sectors. To this end, climate adaptation innovation solutions must integrate the components of the WEF nexus as inputs to each other to enhance resource efficiency, expand the available natural resource base and produce more contribution to the sustainability and security of the WEF sectors. Contributing to the nascent literature on climate adaptation innovation and intellectual property in Africa, this paper adopts the WEF nexus approach to examine the climate adaptation innovation and IP governance in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and discusses select climate adaptation innovation examples from selected SADC countries. In this regard and based on desk research, the paper resolves specific issues such as how African-led innovation influences climate adaptation action in the WEF sectors in Africa, and whether existing IP governance mechanisms can ensure the protection, diffusion, transfer of and access to African-led climate adaptation innovation within Africa. The paper contends that IP regimes that promote equitable balance between the protection of innovators and the need for knowledge diffusion, availability and accessibility through appropriate exclusive and user rights will effectively foster climate adaptation innovation in the WEF sectors of the SADC.</p>