African Leaders Want Easier Access to Climate Finance

While Africa is constantly assured that it holds a well-deserved seat in climate financing negotiations, leaders have informed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the process involved in acquiring such funding is still burdensome, writes Alice Kagina for The New Times.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was in Rwanda on a three-day working visit, seeking to deepen climate financing schemes for developing countries in the region and explain the operational context of the IMF's new Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST). 

She participated in a roundtable discussion with East African finance ministers and Central Bank governors, where they informed her that the process involved in acquiring climate financing under the RST is still burdensome.

Rwanda is the first African country to secure a U.S.$319 million loan under the RST - an initiative that aims at helping low-income and vulnerable middle-income IMF members address longer-term structural challenges such as climate change with longer-term low-cost financing.

However, Georgieva commended Rwanda's commitment to fighting climate change and being the first African country to access the IMF's financing facility to build resilience to climate change.

The topic of climate change has been a priority in many meetings of pressing global issues as a result of long-term developmental actions taken by countries without considering the future impact they would have.