Bank Training Staff to See Green Potential in Projects (AfDB)

4 October 2011
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)
press release

During the month of September 2011, the African Development Bank (AfDB) hosted two internal training sessions to continue efforts to deepen understanding of climate change issues across departments and mainstream climate change in all Bank operations.

Explaining climate change adaptation in Africa

From 12-16 September 25 participants, including 10 field staff, gathered in Tunis, Tunisia to learn more about the implications of climate change adaptation and how the Bank's climate change strategy can best be applied to enhance projects. The science, economics and development issues of climate change were discussed along with Africa's specific vulnerabilities and hotspots, particularly building climate resilience into Africa's agriculture and natural resources sectors.

The course also addressed the larger issues of governance and adaptive management with presentations on the Bank's climate screening tool and the Bank's climate change action plan and its climate change finance architecture.

This training was conducted by Holland's Wageningen University and Research Centers' Center for Development Innovation. It was the initiative of AfDB's Environment and Natural Resource Management Department and its Climate Change Coordinating Committee.

Greening projects through CDM assessment

On 21 September the African Carbon Support Programme (ACSP) held the fifth workshop in a series on "The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Carbon Markets: Current Status and Future." The goal is to acquaint Bank task managers form various departments and sectors on ACSP's assessment process to measure the CDM potential of Bank-sponsored projects.

Nineteen participants, including two from the Ghana field office, learned about climate change causes and impacts, carbon markets, and the CDM project cycle. The status of ongoing international negotiations on the successor of the Kyoto Protocol and their impacts on CDM projects in Africa were also highlighted, as were scenarios of a post-2012 regime.

ACSP explained its proposal to integrate CDM considerations into the Bank's project development cycle so as to ensure CDM potential is identified early and incorporated into concept notes and appraisal reports prior to board approval of projects. The technical assistance provided by the ACSP to Bank task managers, project owners and regional member countries was also clarified. ACSP presented examples of registered CDM projects and potential ones from the Bank's portfolio, and dedicated the afternoon session to discussing CDM potential of projects that task managers had brought to the workshop.

The next training session is set to take place in December 2011 or January 2012. ACSP is hosted by the Bank's Energy, Environment and Climate Change Department.

Adaptation contact:

Felix Jan Baptist Martin

ACSP contacts:

Uche Duru and Faouzi Senhaji

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