In order to help African countries face the various challenges paused by climate change, the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank approved a Clean Energy Investment Framework (CEIF) in the beginning of 2008.

A large segment of Africa's population, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa and in the rural areas of the continent's middle-income countries, lives in conditions of acute 'energy poverty'. Africa's policymakers face a formidable challenge of simultaneously having to reduce the energy poverty while also responding to the increasing energy demand triggered by robust economic growth. The challenge becomes much more complex when one adds the requirement of moving to a low carbon economy.

The AfDB's Clean Energy Investment Framework elaborates on the main broad-based objectives of clean energy development. It aims at:

• accelerating the reduction of energy poverty and vulnerability, by increasing access of households and small economic operators to reliable and affordable energy supplies;
• facilitating sustained high rates of economic growth, by providing operators in the productive sectors with realistically priced electric power and energy supplies;
• contributing to world-wide energy security, by sustaining significant exports of energy resources to the rest of the world, while increasing African countries' collective self-sufficiency and strengthening regional cooperation in energy services and products;
• promoting clean development and contributing to global emissions reduction efforts, by steadily raising energy efficiency on the supply side and encouraging a culture of energy saving on the demand side, increasing the contribution of renewable energy sources, and paying close attention to environmental and social externalities of energy production.

To finance the energy access and clean energy development operations, the Bank Group will draw on resources from its AfDB non-concessional window to finance public-sponsored projects and programs in the 15 middle-income and 'blend' countries and to provide non-guaranteed financing for attractive private-sponsored operations in all the 53 RMCs. The AfDB will work with other partners such as the World Bank to explore opportunities for harnessing additional financing.

The AfDB will work with a range of stakeholders (national governments, regional organizations, sub-sovereign entities, energy and power utilities, independent power producers and distributors, sector regulators, and civil society organizations) on key issues in clean energy access and climate adaptation in all RMCs. The Bank is also willing to create a critical mass of technical expertise and financing capacity in the Bank, with adequate flexibility, accountability and incentives to achieve medium-term results to promote innovative clean energy solutions tailored to African circumstances.

On the other hand, the AfDB is working towards mainstreaming Clean Development Mechanisms opportunities (CDM) into its lending and non-lending work.

Useful links:

AfDB's Policy on the Environment (2004)

Climate Change: the AfDB Perspective

Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into AfDB Group Operations

Climate Change Adaptation in Africa: the Role of the African Development Bank [PowerPoint presentation]

Climate Change: Resource Mobilization Challenges

Climate Change Conference by Sir Stern and Prof. Collier

Interview with Peter Njoh Ngomba, Manager, Operations Policies and Compliance Department, AfDB

Congo Forest Basin Fund