World Bank hails AfDB´s ten-year strategy for Africa´s inclusive, prosperous growth.

According to the World Bank Group, the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, and other stakeholders, the AfDB’s Ten-Year Strategy, (2024-2033) should be hailed because it is an essential tool, not only for the sustainable development of Africa, but also a comprehensive tool for combating climate change and protecting biodiversity across the entire globe.

The positive viewpoints were expressed November 21, at a roundtable. It was focused on “Africa’s Green and Inclusive Future: Climate and Biodiversity Solutions in the African Development Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy”. 

According to the Senior Director of Strategy and Operational Policies at the AfDB, Caroline Kende-Robb, the new Ten-Year Strategy, with vision to build a “prosperous, inclusive, resilient and integrated Africa”, includes climate resilience and biodiversity as one of its five cross-cutting pillars.

“The Ten-Year Strategy builds on the Bank’s Climate Change and Green Growth Strategic Framework Operationalising Africa’s Voice Action Plan 2021-2025,” Kende-Robb who moderated the discussions, explained.

She said it also aims to “harness climate finance at sufficient scale and speed through resources, partnerships and commitments to advance green economy value chains”.

This, Kende-Robb said, will be “achieved by ensuring that Africa's potential in renewable energy, smart agriculture, sustainable transport, waste management, water management, carbon trading and other climate-smart sectors is fulfilled”.

The Policy and Partnerships Manager for Africa at the WWF, Durrel Halleson, paid tribute to the AfDB’s new Ten-Year Strategy.

“Unlike its predecessor, this one seems more comprehensive to me. For the first time, it takes biodiversity into account, which appears six times in the document. This shows the progress made by the Bank. The WWF has been working with the Bank since 2010, and we have launched initiatives related to agriculture, energy and power that align with the Bank's ‘High 5s’,” Durrel said. 

Congratulating the AfDB on getting the adaptation and mitigation financing part right, the Global Director for Social Development at the World Bank Group, Robin Mearns, said the new strategy provides a framework for addressing Africa's current and future challenges. 

“It provides a favourable context for creating the conditions for investment in Africa [...] The strategy sets out the challenges well,” he said.

Mearns pointed out that the cross-cutting elements of the strategy (youth, reducing gender gaps, strengthening governance, etc.) were also in keeping with the World Bank's actions.

The AfDB Ten-Year Strategy, based on the priorities of African countries, highlights the critical need to raise climate finance, including from the private sector, to invest in natural capital and to strengthen partnerships to address the growing impact of climate change and biodiversity loss – hence the need for expanded partnerships with multilateral development banks.

AfDB as example of adaptation financing

Officials of the AfDB Group disclosed at the summit that Africa will need 2.7 billion United States Dollars, USD, between now and 2030 for its climate action though the continent receives barely three per cent of this funding, despite the fact that it is steadily increasing.

To the Acting Director of the Climate Change and Green Growth Department of WWF, Al-Hamndou Dorsouma, countries' capacity to access climate finance needs to be increased. 

AfDB also has various financing instruments via partnerships, the latest being the Climate Action Window for the 37 lowest-income African countries.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Bank raised 1.3 billion USD in global climate finance and, in cooperation with the Global Center on Adaptation, GCA, launched a 25 billion USD programme to accelerate and scale climate adaptation.

Meanwhile, officials at the summit further revealed that the AfDB is the only multilateral development bank to have achieved funding parity for climate adaptation and mitigation. 

Over the past three years, 60 percent of the Bank's climate financing has been devoted to adaptation, and the Bank now boasts an ambitious biodiversity programme. 

The institution is also working to ensure that natural resources are included in the calculation of African countries’ GDP. Participants agreed that it was vital to position people and communities at the heart of all climate action, as only 17 per cent of climate funds actually reach local communities.

“We need to make certain that funding is shared between national authorities and local communities, implement participatory methods and ensure that local operations are based on scientific information and endogenous knowledge in order to plan climate actions effectively,” Mearns underscored.

The Head of the Climate and Environment Finance Division at AfDB, Gareth Phillips, stressed that the institution wanted to channel climate funds in a comprehensive manner. 

He added that the New Collective Quantified Target, NCQG, currently being negotiated in Baku, was important for the Bank in order to specify who would contribute and how much.

“We multilateral development banks want to channel these funds as effectively as possible so as to offer more financing to our member states,” he said, adding that the Bank had between $40 and $44 million available for adaptation programmes.

“Non-market-based instruments are a good way of channelling climate funds, as they are more efficient – some adaptation projects would not receive funding if we stuck to market-based financing mechanisms,” he continued, expressing regret about the fact that developed countries contribute very little to adaptation efforts.  

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3303 of Wednesday November 27, 2024