Africa: Climate finance facing global macroeconomic challenges; time for private sector support

(AfDB) - Africa, the continent that pollutes the planet the least, is today one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate risks. While nations across the continent grapple with financing constraints, resources from the international private sector, including multilateral development financiers such as the African Development Bank, are helping to catalyze climate action and green growth.

For the African Development Bank, greater involvement of the private sector is crucial to closing the gap in climate finance flows into Africa, which until recently, was dominated by non-private actors. For example, of the $29.5 billion invested in African climate finance in 2020, only 14% was from private actors. This is significantly lower than comparable regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean (49%), East Asia and the Pacific (39%) and South Asia (37%). Besides, these limited funds covered a small number of African countries with relatively developed financial markets, such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt, which alone attracted $4.2 billion.

It is the reason the Bank Group has made mobilizing private sector financing for climate and green growth the centerpiece of its 2023 Annual Meetings scheduled for 22-26 May in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The meetings will discuss successful strategies to galvanize more resources, including within Africa, and investment opportunities in renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. The Bank’s Governors, representing its shareholders, will be joined by global experts and development financiers to discuss the matter of a new architecture for mobilizing resources for sustainable investment in Africa. This will include how to make African countries' rich natural capital to finance climate and green growth. About a dozen heads of state and government are expected to attend...Read more on Ecofin Agency

Source: Ecofin Agency