The World Bank Group (WBG) will scale up its support for both climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa. This announcement came during the third One Planet Summit, which took place in Kenya’s capital Nairobi recently.
The summit witnessed participation of President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya; President Emmanuel Macron of France; Interim President of the World Bank Group, Kristalina Georgieva; and Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina J Mohammed.
The WBG is stepping up its climate support for Africa with continued strong support for the International Development Association (IDA), which is the WBG’s fund for the world’s poorest countries. The WBG will provide $22.5bn to Africa for climate adaptation and mitigation for five years from 2021 to 2025.
The aforementioned fund is more than double of the commitment toward climate-related projects over the last five years. The funding is part of the WBG’s 2025 target to step up climate action, launched in December 2018, during the UN’s COP24 in Poland in 2018.
The fund will help African countries manage the risks of a changing climate, while unlocking new investment opportunities. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the WBG’s private sector arms, will also continue to ambitiously grow their climate activities in Africa.
Recognising that a number of countries in Africa are among the most vulnerable to global climate shocks and stresses, and in line with these new climate financing commitments and future direction of the WBG’s Africa Climate Business Plan, more than half of the $22.5bn financing will be devoted toward supporting adaptation and resilience in Africa. This will amount to about $12-12.5bn over the five years from 2021 to 2025 as previously stated.
The World Bank (WB) – a component of the World Bank Group – will provide the government of Ethiopia with a result-based support programme for adaptation and resilience, the largest conducted by the WB ever in Africa. The new operation, which is currently under preparation, will provide $500m for results in improved watershed management and land administration systems.
“People across Africa are already experiencing the growing impacts of climate change. This region is particularly vulnerable to increasing floods, droughts, and destructive storms,” said Georgieva.
The WB has to do more and do it faster, or millions of people could be plunged into poverty, she added, noting, “That’s why the WB is providing more money to build resilience and help communities cope with the effects of climate change in Africa.”
In addition, the WB will carry out intensive Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) engagements with Rwanda and Kenya, under the framework of the NDC partnership, and with generous support from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The engagements will help accelerate the implementation of, and raise the level of ambition for, the countries’ NDCs by supporting systematic mainstreaming and institutionalisation of climate adaptation and mitigation across and within key development sectors and governance levels.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) – a member of the World Bank Group – was also named the Green Bond Development Bank of 2018 at this year’s Green Bond Pioneer awards. The IFC was awarded this premier recognition for its global leadership, best practice, and innovation in green finance for products, such as the inaugural Forests Bond in Kenya, a first-of-its-kind solution to build capital markets’ infrastructure to catalyse funding into forest protection.
Notably, on 14 March, leaders from around the world gathered in Nairobi to reaffirm the world’s commitment to fight against climate change. The WBG is helping African countries protect biodiversity, promote renewable energies, foster resilience, and adaptation to climate change.
