World Bank, AfDB commit $47.5bn to climate financing in Africa

Motolani Oseni

The World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) will provide a total sum of $47.5 billion for Africa to combat climate change for five years.

The World Banks says it will spend $22.5 billion for climate adaptation and mitigation from 2021 to 2025, while the AfDB pledged $25 billion between 2020 and 2025.

The World Bank’s commitment was announced by the bank’s Interim President, Kristalina Georgieva, on a BBC programme on Thursday ahead of the third One Plane Summit (OPS), taking place at the United Nations office in Nairobi, Kenya.

The President said the grant is to help Africa tackle the danger posed by climate change, adding that a number of countries in Africa are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as prolonged drought, floods, destructive storms, and water scarcity.

“Unless we make Africa more resilient, we will see by 2030, 100 million people more falling into poverty rather than being pulled out of poverty,” Ms Georgieva said.

She made it known that the World Bank had also stepped up its efforts to mobilise investments in renewable energy such as solar, which contributes just 1.5 per cent of the continent’s electricity needs.

The World Bank in a statement on its website indicated that the new pledge doubles commitment made by them for climate-related projects over the last five years. It added that more than half of the $22.5 billion would be devoted to supporting adaptation and resilience in Africa.

“This funding supports increasing adaptation and resilience to major climate impacts like catastrophic floods, droughts, water scarcity, coastal erosion, as well as preparing countries for a low carbon sustainable future,” part of the statement read.

Similarly, AfDB is also supporting the fight against climate change with $25 billion. AfDB said the funds would be used to increase investment in renewable energy projects like solar power plants.

AfDB president, Akinwumi Adesina, in a statement signed by Chief communication officer, AFDB, Chawki Chahed, stated that the bank is set to launch ‘Green Baseload’ Facility to provide concessional finance to support reliable and affordable renewable energy baseload; “Desert to Power” initiative enters the implementation stage with Yeleen Project in Burkina Faso.

The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) will double its climate finance commitments for the period 2020-2025, the Bank’s President announced today at the One Planet Summit taking place in Nairobi.

Speaking at a plenary in the presence of Heads of State, including President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, and French President Emmanuel Macron, Adesina also announced the Bank is on course to achieve its target of allocating 40 per cent of its funding to climate finance by 2020, a year ahead.

The Bank’s commitment to the target, the highest among all multilateral development banks, has progressed steadily from 9 per cent in 2016 to 28 per cent in 2017 and 32 per cent in 2018.

Considering Africa’s high vulnerability despite contributing the least to climate change, the African Development Bank has successfully raised its adaptation finance from less than 30per cent of total climate finance to parity with mitigation in 2018. The African Development Bank will continue this trend into the future.