Nearly One Third of African Nations Engaged in Climate-Smart Initiatives, Report Says

15 April 2014
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)
press release

In its just-released 2013 Annual Report for its work with the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), the African Development Bank (AfDB) has indicated that it is supporting 16 national and 1 regional Investment Plans in renewables, forests, resilience and transport in Africa, and that more than half of the projects under those plans - including all projects addressing forests and climate resilience - have been approved by the Bank's Board and are driving toward implementation.

As spelled out in Financing Change: the AfDB and CIF for a Climate-Smart Africa, this work is part of the Bank's larger vision to support African nations' efforts to achieve climate-smart growth. AfDB has dedicated $4.3 billion to clean energy since 2007 to become the largest financer of clean energy on the continent. Today, through the AfDB as a CIF implementing agency, 16 African countries - nearly one third of the continent's 54 nations - are actively engaged in innovative and urgent climate-smart work, and 13 projects out of the AfDB CIF portfolio's total of 25 have been approved and are beginning on-the-ground action.

"The AfDB's CIF-supported work builds on a unique feature of the CIF design," said Mafalda Duarte, AfDB's CIF Coordinator. "To support countries in their efforts to embed climate response into their national development plans - a must if climate response is to have any lasting impact - the CIF introduced a programmatic approach to climate action, through which countries developed national-level Investment Plans (IPs) in order to qualify for CIF funding. With AfDB's and CIF's support, 16 countries throughout the continent have done the critical legwork to build viable IPs, and we are now underway to help them carry out the projects in their IPs."

As of today, approved projects in the AfDB CIF portfolio, with a total investment of $1.1 billion from AfDB and $0.5 billion from the CIF, include:

Clean Energy

Morocco Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

Morocco ONE Wind Energy

South Africa Eskom wind and solar power

Kenya Menengai geothermal fields

Nigeria renewables and energy efficiency financing through local banks

Sustainable Forest Management and REDD+

Burkina Faso gazetted forests community REDD+

Democratic Republic of Congo addressing deforestation and forest degradation in the Mbuji Mayi/Kananga/Kisangani supply areas

Ghana engaging local communities in REDD+

Climate Resilience

Mozambique sustainable land and water management

Mozambique Baixo Limpopo irrigation and climate resilience

Niger water resources mobilization and development

Niger climate information development and forecasting

Zambia strengthening climate resilience in the Kahue sub-basin

Expected outcomes from the projects include significant reduction of CO2 emissions, increased energy access and efficiency, poverty reduction, and regenerated forests in forest-rich countries.

Read the original article on African Development Bank (AfDB).

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