Webinar Recording: Mobilizing Africa's Financial Sector for Low-carbon and Climate-resilient Development
African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC)
The African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC) in partnership with The Secretariat of Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership (MFW4A), the African Development Bank (AfDB) , the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), United Nations Environmental Programme Financial Initiative (UNEP-FI), The Global Financial Alliance on Net Zero (GFANZ) and Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa) organized an event on "Mobilizing Africa's Financial Sector for Low-carbon and Climate-resilient Development".
The event was hybrid (held in Nairobi, Kenya and online)
The slides are available HERE
Climate change presents one of the most severe threats confronting African countries today. Most African countries have responded to climate change by outlining the steps to reduce their emissions and enhance their resilience in the updated Nationally Determined Contributions. However, African countries already contend with climate effects stemming from the stock of historical emissions.
As a result of climate change, Africa loses USD 7 to 15 billion per year, projected to rise to USD 50 billion by 2030, despite contributing less than 3% to historical emissions. At the same time, Africa's cumulative climate financing needs are estimated at 2.7 trillion dollars between 2020 and 2030. This includes climate adaptation needs estimated at USD 249 - 447 billion over the same period.
Most of Africa’s climate needs are currently financed by public resources, which are increasingly constrained. At the same time, African economies have yet to fully recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this context, African countries must urgently increase the share of private climate finance from the current low base of 14%. The African Development Bank in 2018 launched the African Financial Alliance to mobilize more private sector financing, and foster a transformation of financial portfolios towards green financing. Since its inception, AFAC has focused primarily on advocacy and raising awareness of climate threats, investment prospects, and emerging trends in sustainable finance. In the period since it was launched, the AFAC guiding principles were developed and endorsed.
The event drawn participants from major financial institutions on the African continent and development institutions working to transition Africa's financial industry to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy, including African commercial and development banks, institutional investors, financial regulators, and supporting organizations and networks such as GCA, UNEP-FI, GFANZ, FSD Africa and MFW4A.
It also served as a platform to secure collective commitment towards achieving AFAC’s Vision 2030; its Strategy 2023-2027 and get high-level support and endorsement for the proposed governance structure and work programme.