Watch: AfDB to commit $12.5 billion to climate finance – Adesina

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Watch: AfDB to commit $12.5 billion to climate finance – Adesina

9:34 CAT | 26 Jan 2021

Screen grab: CAS TV

The African Development Bank has announced that it will fund climate finance in Africa with an additional sum of $12.5 billion.

This was disclosed by the President of the AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, at the online International Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) 2021 on Monday. The summit aims to define the path for a decade of climate investment and transformation in the 2030s.

Adesina added that the bank would increase its climate financing by 400%, rising from 38% of its total financing in 2019, stating that Africa needed collective actions to take the climate fight seriously and adapt to ecological changes.

“We expect to reach 40 per cent in climate finance this year,” said Adesina.

“To do more for Africa, we are building strategic partnerships,” he said.

“The AfDB and the GCA-Africa have launched the ‘Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program’ to mobilise 25 billion dollars in new climate finance for Africa—and to scale up innovative and transformative actions on climate adaptation across Africa,” he added.

Statement By Dr. Akinwumi Adesina – Climate Adaptation Summit 2021

Your Excellencies, as we gather here today for the Climate Adaptation Summit, I commend the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Mark Rutte of The Netherlands and the former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon for organising this Summit.

Climate change is changing hopes and livelihoods, dramatically.

Africa’s growth is being compromised by climate change.

The sight of locust swarms devastating thousands of hectares of cropland in east Africa was shocking.

Perennial droughts and encroaching deserts lay bare the vulnerability of the Sahel of Africa, scotching lives into misery and driving migration.

Yes, we all see these things. Now — we must feel. Now — we must act. Now — we must deliver on accelerated climate adaptation for Africa.

The African Development Bank is at the forefront of climate finance for Africa.

The Bank has quadrupled its financing for the climate to reach $ 25 billion by 2025.

We increased the percentage of our climate financing devoted to climate adaptation from 26% in 2016 to 55% in 2019.

We launched the Desert to Power initiative — a $20 billion initiative –to build the world’s largest solar zone in the Sahel.

At the One Planet Summit with President Macron, I announced that the African Development Bank will mobilize $ 6.5 billion in support of the Great Green Wall of the Sahel.

The former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and I have jointly established the Global Center for Adaptation in Africa (CGA-Africa), based at the Bank.

The African Development Bank and GCA-Africa have launched the ‘Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program’ to mobilize $25 billion to scale up transformative actions on climate adaptation. The program needs your strong support.

It is time for developed countries to meet the $100 billion per year in climate finance promised to developing countries.

Kofi Annan, the late former United Nations Secretary-General, once told me “The only promises that matter, are the promises kept”.

So, let us turn words into action, hope into reality, and promises into financing for Africa.

Together we adapt, together we prosper!

Thank you very much.

What you should know

Recall Nairametrics reported that African Development Bank (AfDB) said it was committed to mobilizing the sum of $25 billion in climate finance in Africa by 2025, as well as a number of other initiatives by the bank that would address climate adaptation.