The prestigious TIME Magazine has named the African Development's Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Hassatou Diop N'Sele as one of the key "catalysts for climate change" in its second annual TIME100 Climate List.
The citation honours N'Sele's ground-breaking work for making significant progress in influencing the business of climate change. TIME described her as a pioneer in climate finance and highlighted how she'd helped the Bank introduce a $750 million "hybrid" bond to scale up climate finance.
The Bank was the first development bank to do this and the initiative was oversubscribed at $6 billion. Now other development banks are expected to follow suit.
N'Sele signed the Global Green Bond Initiative to provide technical assistance to promote green bond markets in Africa at the 2023 COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai. The Initiative is a coalition of development finance institutions and the Global Green Fund.
N'Sele told Time magazine that the Bond has proved a viable instrument for multinational banks in the future:
"Sadly, less than 3% of our countries are able to access climate funds. This is one of the reasons why we decided to scale up our climate financing".
She added: "Africa is one of the continents that is most affected by climate change and the least equipped to face climate shocks".
To identify N'Sele as one of the world's top 100 change-makers, TIME magazine's editors spent months vetting names from across the global economy, measuring scalable achievements to identify the leaders driving successful and equitable climate action.
Other recipients include World Bank President Ajay Banga for his work making it less risky to invest in energy transition in the Global South, and the philanthropist Bill Gates, who was recognised as the Founder of Breakthrough Energy and Terra Power.
TIME's aim is for the 100 cited by the magazine to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. Further details on the list can be found here:
