The African Development Bank (AfDB) has pledged $25 billion funding towards financing climate change mitigation programmes in the continent for the period 2020- 2025.
AfDB president, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, made the announcement in a communiqué by the regional bank last week at the close of the One Planet Summit, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya.
“The African Development Bank will double its climate finance commitments for the period 2020-2025. The bank’s president… Akinwumi Adesina said that the bank would commit at least US$25 billion towards climate finance,” reads the communiqué.
The One Planet Summit took place last week and drew an audience from world leaders who re-affirmed commitment to the effects of fight against climate change.
At the summit, Zimbabwe was represented by the Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Prisca Mupfumira and Zimbabwean billionaire, Mr Strive Masiyiwa.
Dr Adesina told delegates who included Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and France’s Emmanuel Macron that AfDB was on course to achieve its target of allocating 40 percent of its funding to climate finance by 2020.
The bank’s commitment on the target is the highest among all multilateral development banks and has progressed steadily from nine percent in 2016 to 28 percent in 2017 and 32 percent in 2018.
“The required level of financing is only feasible with the direct involvement of the entire financial sector. Consequently the bank launched the African Financial Alliance for Climate Change (AFAC) to link all stock exchanges, pension and sovereign wealth funds, central banks and other financial institutions of Africa to mobilise and incentivise the shift of their portfolios towards low carbon and climate resilient investments,” said Dr Adesina.
AfDB is set to launch its ‘green base load’ facility under the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa meant to provide concessional finance and technical assistance to support the penetration and scaling up of renewable energy.
It would also provide affordable and reliable renewable energy base load in the fight against climate change.
Zimbabwe has been playing its part in curbing pollution and spearheading renewable energy projects. Government through the Transitional Stabilisation Programme has prioritised investments in renewable energy power generation, transmission and distribution networks.