Africa Day, held on 15 November within COP23 in Bonn, was the springboard for the official launch of Africa NDC Hub, the African Platform for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This African Development Bank (AfDB) initiative is intended to help the 54 African countries fulfil their commitments under the Paris Agreement, in other words, to put their respective NDCs into action without neglecting their own development priorities.

"This platform is a response to requests made by various African countries," said Amadou Hott, AfDB vice president for electricity, energy, climate change and green growth, as he unveiled the new initiative to a gathering of Heads of State, ministers, policy makers and representatives of civil society, among others, from across the continent. "It should be seen as an "opportunity to accelerate investment in climate action in Africa through NDCs," he said, noting that it will facilitate "better coordination among partners to provide a collective and effective response", for and by the whole of Africa.

This platform should be a catalyst for concessional funding for climate-related projects in Africa which will, in turn, help raise private finance. This is a most timely initiative, bearing in mind that, US$ 4 billion will be required to implement the NDCs, according to recent studies,

While all 54 African countries signed the Paris Agreement, 43 have ratified it and 53 (the exception being Libya) have submitted their NDCs, 85% of which are conditional upon financial aid from abroad while only 15% are on the basis of domestic budgets. And Africa is already the poor orphan when it comes to world climate funding, capturing less than 5% of the total. Thus, the announcement of this new platform was warmly welcomed.

To date, Africa NDC Hub has 10 partners other than AfDB: the African Union Commission (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the International Institute for the Environment and Development (IIED) and the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.