Dubai — The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, chaired the High-Level Forum on the Great Green Wall of Southern Africa initiative on Saturday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a focus on mitigating environmental phenomena in the region.
With the motto "expanding an African ambition to solve the world's most pressing issues", the project promotes the integration of member countries on environmental issues, such as the fight against desertification, soil degradation and food insecurity.
In his statement, João Lourenço considered that the region has great potential to contribute to a sustainable and prosperous future, given its growing young population.
The Angolan Head of State announced that under Angola's presidency in 2024, SADC would focus on human and financial capital as a catalyst for sustainable industrialisation in the southern part of the continent.
He said that with the SADC Great Green Wall initiative the region would gain momentum, as there was great potential to attract investment in favour of the environmental cause.
President João Lourenço recalled that the initiative was approved by SADC's Environment and Natural Resources ministers in 2015 and progress has been made in developing strategies for implementing the initiative, with most members finalising their national action plans.
On the sidelines of COP 28, he called on the member countries to show a strong political commitment to improving regional integration, with a view to cooperating more in different sectors.
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Funding
In his capacity of Cherperson of SADC, the Angolan Head of State asked the partners for more funding to launch concrete actions on the ground before the next Summit of Heads of State.
He said that panoramic studies of funding indicate that Africa needs around 277 billion dollars a year to meet the 2030 climate targets, and explained that the Southern African region has the biggest funding gap in absolute terms, although the case varies from country to country.
The Angolan leader highlighted that Africa's prospects for 2023 are insufficient, as Angola alone has climate finance needs of 44 billion dollars for 2021-2025 to stimulate its green growth agenda.
He added that "the 27 billion dollars indicative for the implementation of the SADC Great Green Wall Initiative is not close to the financing needs in the region, so we need to increase our budget".
In addition to this speech, João Lourenço read out his national declaration as guest Head of State at the COP 28 Global Climate Action Summit.
Later today he met with his Malagasy counterpart, Andry Rajoelina, and received in audience the Prime Minister of São Tomé and Príncipe, Patrice Trovoada.VIC/VC/DAN/DOJ
