Seventy percent of smallholder farmers in Africa depend on rainfed farming systems, making them vulnerable to climate variability and extremes. Climate information services (CIS) adoption by smallholder farmers in Africa presents a promising solution for adaptation to climate variability. This paper unravels the complexities around climate services for smallholder farmers and explores opportunities to tailor CIS for the resources of smallholder farmers. We use a systematic literature review approach to assess how the human, social, physical/technical, natural and financial capitals may affect awareness, access and use of CIS by smallholder farmers. The study is based on 33 papers from Africa. Majority of the studies gave emphasis on education, information communication and technology literacy levels and advisory services as influencing CIS access, use and uptake. The results highlight that better resourced smallholder farmers have higher access and are more likely to adopt CIS. The human capital emerged as an important component of CIS adoption as it directly determines how the farmer makes decisions on the farm. The natural capital determines the specific preference for CIS when the financial and economic capitals enable farmers acting according to the information received. The social capital provides a basis for farmers to benefit from compounded resources. Thus, the livelihood resource capitals of the target farmers must be considered in CIS information production and dissemination to improve the chances of CIS adoption by vulnerable groups that is illiterate, women, elderly, farmers in agroecological zones prone to climate extremes and poorly resourced farmers.