Funding options for African countries hit by climate change : Africa Climate Change Fund shows results
The
debate around climate change often focuses on the targets that need to be
achieved.
Another
aspect of the discussion is increasingly gaining attention; that is the funding
required, for African countries in particular, where climate change has hit the
hardest.
The
Africa Climate Change Fund (ACCF) recently convened an event titled “Supporting
African countries to unlock and absorb climate adaptation finance” at the 25th edition of the Conference of the
Parties (COP 25) in Madrid, Spain.
A
panel discussion of climate experts provided an opportunity to raise awareness
of the ACCF among stakeholders at an international level. The event, moderated
by the African Development Bank’s Manager of Climate Finance, Gareth Phillips,
aimed to showcase the ACCF’s work to support African countries in unlocking and
absorbing climate adaptation finance through a pipeline of 15 projects.
Phillips
provided an overview of the ACCF, a $15.3 million trust fund with contributions
from Germany, Italy, and Flanders, which provides grants to African governments
and non-governmental organizations to scale up access to climate finance and
pilot adaptation initiatives in line with Nationally Determined Contributions
under the Paris Agreement.
Phillips
cited the fund’s current portfolio of eight projects, six national (Cabo Verde,
Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mali, Eswatini and Zanzibar) and two regional.
He
said the projects aimed to support beneficiary countries to implement
small-scale adaptation initiatives and to access international climate funds.
This is by supporting the development of project proposals for submission to
the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and by building capacities of national experts on
proposal writing, project management and/or resource mobilization. These
projects also support the accreditation process of national institutions to the
GCF.
Phillips
also introduced new projects approved by the ACCF and presented funding needs
to satisfy the fast-growing demand of African countries.
Lassina
Coulibaly, coordinator of the ACCF’s project on supporting the transition to a
climate-resilient green economy in Mali, said: “The development of a national
environment finance strategy is critical to boost the country’s resource
mobilization efforts and a portfolio of five projects for consideration by the
private sector.”
Balgis
Osman, climate change expert at the African Development Bank, shared the experience
of the regional project to enhance access to information in Africa through 25
country climate change profiles. Osman indicated that, “With this project, we
are helping African countries to get climate information.”
Aissata
Boubou, head of the climate finance unit at the Centre de Suivi écologique in
Senegal gave an overview of the ACCF’s efforts to support south-south
cooperation through a Community of Practice of Direct Access Entities, which is
a joint government and civil society initiative to enable sharing of best
practices around accessing international climate finance.
Clifford
Polycarp from GCF presented the partnership opportunities with the GCF to
enable African countries to mobilize resources to implement their climate
change projects outlined in their Nationally Determined Contributions.
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