Webinar Recording: Capital markets and Climate Action in Africa

Climate Change and the African Financial Sector

Webinar Series

The African Development Bank (AfDB), Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and the Secretariat of Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership (MFW4A), in collaboration with the African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC), are convening a series of webinars on Climate Change and the Financial Sector to raise awareness around the risks and opportunities. The series will consist of four (4) webinars addressing specific subjects.   

This fourth webinar which took place Thursday 27 July, dealt with Capital markets and Climate Action in Africa

The slides are available HERE

Presentation Report is available HERE

Africa will require about $1.3 trillion annually to meet its sustainable development needs by 2030—and thus to achieve green growth. Most of this finance is expected to be met through private finance. To meet these needs and given the current levels of public climate finance, private climate finance should increase by about 36 percent each year until 2030 .

Although the global landscape for private green, social and sustainable (GSS) finance is expanding, Africa is still struggling to fully leverage this expansion.  Sustainable finance issuance particularly in developed markets continues to gain traction as more private sector investors (institutional investors, asset managers, etc.) align investment decisions closely with ESG mandates. Cumulative global green bonds issuance has exceeded USD $1.9tr outstanding, with USD $313.8bn issued in 2022 only.

Despite the increased awareness of GSS investment opportunities, green bonds and other GSS products issuance in Africa (particularly outside South Africa) remains low. Green Bond issuances in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) have largely been sovereign, with sub-nationals, banks and corporate issuers remaining rather inactive.

Scaling up bond markets and moving them towards greater alignment with climate and other sustainable development objectives would offer a path to mobilising additional capital for sustainable development financing needs on the African continent. This webinar explored how African capital markets can promote GSS finance and play a role in addressing climate change in Africa. The webinar discussed the opportunities and challenges in sustainable finance for African capital markets, and highlighted initiatives on the continent from different capital markets actors.