To ensure long term climate resilience and investments in climate sensitive sectors, including water, infrastructure, energy, and agriculture, Africa needs to scale up and increase its partnerships in the Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES), according to experts at a side event on the margins of 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai. AFRI-RES was established to support African countries and stakeholders with the tools and capacity to integrate climate resilience in investments in critical sectors.
The side event was about partnership for scaling up resilience in Africa. It included the results, lessons learned, and ways forward and was organized by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), African Union Commission (AUC), African Development Bank (AfDB), World Bank Group, and the Nordic Development Fund (NDF).
Nassim Oulmane, acting director of technology for climate change and natural at ECA said African economies are losing on average 5% of their GDP per year because of the adverse impacts of climate change. For example, he said the cyclone Freddy in Malawi early this year affected 4.8% of the country’s GDP. It affected the main dam that generates electricity, and they are still struggling to fill the 40% gap.
“This is a huge loss for a developing country. It is therefore important to strengthen the capacity of African institutions and private sector to plan, design, and implement investments in selected sectors to increase their resilience to climate change,” said Oulmane.
He said Phase 1 of AFRI-RES has ended and Phase 2 will rely on the lessons learned in the first phase. “Phase 1 generated knowledge that has informed the climate resilience sector guidance notes and knowledge products,” said Oulmane.
Kanta Rigaud, lead environmental specialist at the World Bank, presented on enhancing the African climate resilient investment facility partnership for scaling up resilience in Africa. She said 30 AFRI-RES projects, including both traditional projects (agriculture, water) and nontraditional projects (energy, health, finance competitiveness, and innovation) received funding over the last five years to deepen climate resilience in investments.
Citing the case of West Africa (Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Burkina Faso), she said the heat stress in human labor and poverty revealed the impact of climate change on agriculture, jobs, and poverty and informed the diagnostics of the World Bank Country Climate Development reports.
“To address the heat stress in human labor and poverty, there is need to deploy resilience attributes into design and monitoring of projects, translate knowledge into practical skills and capacity with a focus on modular units and certification programs, and ensure training materials for integration of climate resilience in PIDA Phase 2.”
During the AFRI-RES Phase 1, ECA developed a climate change knowledge and data portal as a gateway to other similar portals.
Rigaud said, based on the findings of the Phase 1 of AFRI-RES, and looking ahead, it is important to ensure a growing demand for AFRI-RES knowledge and training products including pace and reach. There is also an urgent need for a one-stop-shop for climate data and information.
Haruna Gujba from the African Union Commission (AUC) said building partnerships and sustained networks is key for the next stage of AFRI-RES and it requires a three-part strategy that includes the next generation of knowledge products that can reach deeper and wider; training and capacity building for sustained impact and broadening partnerships.
