The African Development Bank climate finance continuous to gain ground as the bank in 2019, committed 3.5 billion across the continent to finance climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.
This is according to the Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) Climate Finance Report 2020, which noted that AFDB’s climate financing mostly targeted renewable energy and resilient agriculture sectors.
According to the report, the climate financing represents 35 per cent of the total the 2019 approvals of projects worth US$ 10.2 billion, representing an increase of 0.3 per cent over 2018 and 26 per cent over 2016.
“As African economies face the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, relaxing action or redirecting financial resources away from climate change will further exacerbate these impacts in diverse and complex ways,” said Anthony Nyong, AfDB Director for Climate Change and Green Growth.
The pan-African financial institution in its report on climate finance published in 2019 pledged to allocate 40 per cent of its project approvals to climate change financing by 2020.
The climate funds released by the bank are crucial for compliance with the resolutions of the 21st United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted on December 12, 2015, in Paris, France.
The funds enable AFDB’s member countries to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This results in the implementation of innovative projects in the energy sector, sustainable forest management, climate resilience and the mobilisation of additional funds from public and private sources.
Climate financing is also increasingly flowing at the global level with the total of such financing provided in 2019 by all seven the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) of the world amounts to a record $61.6 billion. This is an increase of 30 per cent from the $43.1 billion that was released in 2018.
Early this year, the Green Cluster of SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire awarded the African Development Bank (AfDB) a prize for the best technical and financial partner committed to promoting the green economy and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) toward a low-carbon transition.
The award acknowledges the actors that have made a significant contribution to the development of green SMEs and the emergence of a sustainable low-carbon green economy resilient to climate change.