By Asmau Ahmad
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has committed an additional $12.5 billion to climate finance from 2020 to 2025 in Africa.
President of the AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, who stated this at the first online international Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) 2021, said the two-day summit, hosted by the Dutch government, aimed to adopt a roadmap for a decade of transformation toward a climate-resilient future by 2030.
He said that the amount would be 100 per cent committed to climate adaptation on the continent. He said that Africa needed to be heard and collective actions should be taken to help the continent adapt to climate changes.
Dr Adesina added that the bank had increased its climate finance by 400 per cent, rising from nine per cent of its total finance in 2016 to 38 per cent in 2019.
“We expect to reach 40 per cent in climate finance this year. “To do more for Africa, we are building strategic partnerships,” he said.
He expressed delight over the partnership with the former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon to establish the Global Center for Adaptation-Africa (GCA-Africa) hosted at the bank.
Adesina said the ambition of GCA-AFRICA is bold. “To galvanise climate resilience actions; support countries to accelerate and scale up climate adaptation and resilience; and mobilise financing at scale for climate adaptation in Africa.
“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 said.
He said the programme would deliver climate adaptation for Africa at scale and added that it should be “robustly supported” as it was “Africa’s platform for rapid climate adaptation.
“This is the time for scaled-up actions on climate adaptation for Africa. Africa must not be short-changed by climate finance. It is time to act, for Africa can no longer wait,” he added.
He said that the AfDB and the GCA-Africa were geared up for transformative actions and committed to work with all climate stakeholders.
Participants at the summit included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the United States’ Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.
