VICE-PRESIDENT Dr Philip Mpango has underscored the need for international financial institutions to improve the funding systems in development projects, in order to match the global changes.
Dr Mpango made the remarks on Tuesday during the Annual Meetings 2023 of the African Development Bank (AfDB) held at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Centre in Egypt.
The meetings presented a unique opportunity for knowledge dissemination among high-level decision-makers in Africa, key officials of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, leading academics and representatives of non-governmental organisations, civil society, and the private sector.
The approved theme for the meetings, which comprised the 58th Annual Assembly of the African Development Bank and the 49th meeting of the African Development Fund is 'Mobilizing Private Sector Financing for Climate and Green Growth in Africa'.
During the meeting, Dr Mpango underlined the importance of revisiting the entire architecture of the multilateral financing institutions, to cope with global changes, particularly climate change.
"We have now a completely new set of challenges facing the world...we have environmental challenges, natural calamities, food insecurities, pandemics and more recently, geopolitical tensions and wars, so we need to review the entire architecture of multilateral financing institutions," Dr Mpango emphasised.
In improving the funding system, Dr Mpango said the international financial institutions have to set a procedure to consider the priorities of the respective countries during the provision of funding as well as focusing on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The VP further said there was a need to revisit the policy conditionalities of the multilateral financial institutions to absolutely cut down on the length of processes entailed in getting funds from the institutions.
Adding: "The capital base also needs to be increased to match the huge demand of developing countries and national priorities."
The meeting was attended by Heads of State and Governments from various nations led by the President of Egypt Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, international institutions, finance ministers and governors, civil society, private sector, international organisations, the AfDB led by President Dr Akinumwi Adesina, leaders from the African Union (AU) and various financial and environmental stakeholders.
Moreover, Dr Mpango met and held a talk with Egypt's Prime Minister, Mr Mostafa Madbouly-a conversation held in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El Sheikh.
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During the talk, various issues of cooperation were discussed including energy and the environment.
In a related development, Dr Mpango held talks with the President-Designate for COP28 Dr Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also a special member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on climate change issues.
The VP is in Egypt to represent President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan at the Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) which will end on Friday.
According to the statistics unveiled by the AFDB, Africa is estimated to have lost annually about 5 to 15 per cent of its GDP per capita growth between 1986- 2015 due to climate change-related hazards.
More so, Africa experienced a recurrence of climate risks, shocks, and other extreme weather events over the past two decades.
The statistics show a total of 131 extreme-weather, climate change-related disasters were recorded on the continent in 2020 and 2021 of which 99 were floods, 16 storms, 14 droughts, and 2 wildfires.
In particular, the number of floods in Africa has increased fivefold since the 1990s, and floods are more extreme than before.
"Recent data show that flooding that occurred in 2020 across many parts of East Africa, with Sudan and Kenya being the worst affected. They were devastating, causing substantial human, ecological, and economic losses," the report said.
"In the absence of strong climate change policies, projections show that Africa could lose between 2 per cent and 12 per cent of GDP by 2100," the AfDB report unveiled.
