The African Development Bank and the Global Center for Adaptation today launched a new initiative under the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program Technical Assistant Program to help African countries access more funding for climate adaptation.
A climate case is the scientific basis for a project and describes the climate change scenario, highlighting the climate problem in a particular country (for example, floods, droughts for an adaptation project) and region in which the project will be implemented. The Green Climate Fund for climate justification based on 30 years of point source climate data has led to a high attrition rate for funding proposals with an adaptation focus.
Through this new initiative, Direct Access Entities in Africa will receive additional support to enhance their climate data capacity, tools and methodologies to help them meet the critical requirements of the climate case for compelling funding proposals that may merit GCF Board approval. .
The GCF is one of the mechanisms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to contribute significantly to global efforts to achieve the goals set by the international community to combat climate change. Support developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. For adaptation, it allocates resources based on: (i) the ability of a proposed activity to demonstrate its potential to adapt to the impacts of climate change by promoting sustainable development and a paradigm shift; (ii) the urgent and immediate needs of vulnerable countries, in particular the least developed countries, small island developing States and African States.
The African Development Bank and the Global Center for Adaptation will work with their partners to select at least four proposals each year based on the pipeline of Direct Access Entity funding proposals that require additional technical assistance and guidance. Through its Technical Assistance Program (TAP), the Global Center for Adaptation will provide technical assistance for a selected set of funding proposals.
The launch event for the new initiative took place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on 6the and 7the December with program partners, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Africa Climate Change Fund, the ClimDev Special Fund and the Regional Climate Centers in Africa.
23 Direct Access Entities accredited or in the final stage of accreditation to the GCF participated in the two-day event with representatives of regional and international accredited entities, including the Southern African Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Bank for West African Development, the African Finance Corporation and the United Nations Environment Programme.
In opening remarks, Professor Anthony O. Nyong, Senior Director for Africa at the Global Center for Adaptation, said: “Africa is on the front lines of our climate emergency. Through this new initiative, we aim to significantly increase the flow of adaptation finance to the region. Given the central role of the Green Climate Fund, the unprecedented volumes of financing it offers, the range of financial instruments it provides and its different modalities of access, we will initially focus this initiative on accessing GCF resources, but this is only the beginning of our long-term partnership with African countries to mobilize finance for climate adaptation across the continent. »
Dr. Al Hamndou Dorsouma, Acting Director of the African Development Bank’s Climate Change and Green Growth Department, said: “The climate rationale for the GCF financing proposal is like the foundation of a building. A strong building must have a strong foundation, and I am pleased that our bank has forged collaboration with relevant regional and international institutions to help shortcut entities gain approvals for further adaptation finance proposals with a strong climate case.”
Dr. Kevin Horsburgh, Principal Climate Scientist representing the GCF, noted: “To advance transformative projects and catalyze climate finance at scale, the GCF follows a four-pronged approach: transformative planning; catalyze innovation; risk elimination of high impact projects; and align finance with sustainable development. Each step needs the best information available to help in decision making. The GCF is pleased to work with the WMO to create a bridge between climate information and all those who need to use it, to improve access to climate finance.”
Amir Delju, Chief Scientific Officer of the World Meteorological Organization, said: “The effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change must be based on ‘the best available scientific knowledge’. We recognize that it is very difficult for least developed countries to meet this requirement. As a provider of expert services, WMO will continue to deliver the full value cycle of climate services, from data to analysis, information production, interpretation of findings and expert advice.”
