As part of the fourth edition of the One Planet Summit dedicated to biodiversity, opened this Monday, January 11 in Paris, the African Development Bank revealed that in 2019 it had allocated nearly 36% of its approvals, or $ 3.6 billion. Americans, to climate finance, more than half of which is dedicated to the adaptation of African countries to climate change.
Hailed for its commitment to climate finance, the Bank was chosen in 2020 by development partners to house the Regional Office for Africa of the Global Center on Adaptation.
The activities of this brand new structure were launched on September 16, 2020 in Abidjan, under the high patronage of the President of the Bank, Adesina Akinwumi, in the presence of many African Heads of State and world leaders such as Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary General of the UN, and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
After the United Nations Climate Conference organized in Paris in 2015 (COP 21), the African Development Bank adopted a Climate Action Plan for the period 2016-2020 , which gives high priority strengthening climate resilience.
In recent years, the Bank’s resources allocated to finance adaptation to climate change and resilience have quintupled, from US $ 338 million in 2016 to US $ 2 billion in 2019 .
Africa emits only 4% of greenhouse gases
In addition to financing adaptation to climate change, the Bank’s Climate Action Plan is based on promoting a low-carbon development path, mobilizing climate finance and creating an environment conducive to climate change. climate action.
While emitting only 4% of the planet’s greenhouse gases, Africa is the region of the world most affected by the effects of climate change, which often result in deadly floods, tropical cyclones and recurrent droughts.
Seven of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world are in Africa.
This year, for example, the heavy floods that hit the countries of the Sahel as well as the locust invasions and droughts seriously affected all development sectors and created a humanitarian disaster in an already difficult context marked by the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. of Covid 19.
Faced with the large-scale drought in the Horn of Africa, eleven member countries of the Intergovernmental Authority for the Development of East Africa (IGAD) benefited from the Bank’s capacity building program on challenges posed by climate change.
With the Special Climate Fund for Development in Africa hosted at its headquarters in Abidjan, the African Development Bank also provides considerable financial and technical assistance for the strengthening of national meteorological and hydrological services and regional climate centers, including the African Center of meteorology applied to development (ACMAD) based in Niamey in Niger.
Launched in 2017 by French President Emmanuel Macron, the One Planet Summit gives the opportunity to leaders from around the world and to international organizations to reflect on biodiversity and raise their level of ambition on the protection of nature and the climate. , while responding to new questions posed by the current crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fourth edition of the Summit, which is being held by videoconference, intends to make a decisive contribution to the preparation of the COP 26 scheduled for November 1-11, 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland.
