Kigali Rwanda, 13 March 2024 (ECA) - The Sixth Africa Climate Resilient Investment Summit (ACRIS VI) ends today in Kigali Rwanda. ACRIS is a flagship event of the Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) – a joint initiative of the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union Commission, and the World Bank with initial funding support from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF). AFRI-RES supports African countries and infrastructure project developers with tools and capacities for integrating climate resilience in investments in key sectors, including agriculture, energy, water, transport, cities and ecosystems. AFRI-RES has so far trained 60 participants from 19 countries on climate resilience through the ECA’s African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, IDEP. The initiative has trained over 50 participants from 16 countries, worked with AUC and AUDA-NEPAD to provide technical training for the integration of climate resilience in the second phase of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), developed sectoral guidelines and resilience booster tool for projects design, and supported over USD 8 billion of 30 IDA / IBRD IDA funded projects across 10 sectors in Africa.
ACRIS VI, under the theme of ‘Advancing Adaptation in Africa’, brought together stakeholders from governments, international organizations, the private sector, civil society, and academia to discuss strategies and opportunities for investing in climate-resilient infrastructure in key sector.
ACRIS VI, hosted by Rwanda, marks the conclusion of the first phase of the AFRI-RES initiative and the beginning of mobilization of new partnerships and resources for the next phase of the programme.
In her opening remarks, Dr Claudine Uwera, Minister of State for the Environment in the Ministry of Environment of Rwanda in her welcome and opening remarks stressed that “…to effectively address the negative impacts of climate change now and in the future, climate change adaptation strategies need to be integrated into wider national policies and planning processes – adaptation cannot stand in isolation, and climate resilience would not be achieved with only good policies and financial investments but also effective collaborations, knowledge and experience sharing and a strong collective commitment to action”.
Dr Ian Shuker, Regional Director, Sustainable Development for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank called for urgency to scale up adaptation to build resilience in Africa, which is host to two-thirds of the 50 countries most vulnerable to climate change worldwide, cautioning that inaction to address resilience in Africa could result in staggering human development and economic costs, including up to 19% of GDP and a 7.5% increase poverty headcount rate by 2069, and could drive up to 13.5 million people across the Sahel Region alone into poverty. On his part, the World Bank’s Country Director for Rwanda, Mr. Sahr Kpundeh, highlighted that adapting to build resilience comes at a cost and that the tightening of global financial conditions coupled with stretched national budgets are making investing in climate action a deliberate choice for many governments with need for financial innovation and increased green investments, particularly from the private sector.
Representing the ECA in the opening high-level segment of ACRIS VI, Dr Mama Keita, Director for the subregional office for Eastern Africa, emphasized that infrastructure development is at the heart of Africa’s sustainable and inclusive development agenda and forms the foundation for sustained industrialization, trade and regional integration, food systems transformation and food security, resilient cities, and vibrant ecosystems. She praised the achievements achieved so far by the AFRI-RES initiative and said the initiative has a big role to play to inform Africa’s climate resilient infrastructure development and in boosting confidence in the mobilization of finance from the private sector to close Africa’s huge infrastructure gap.
Linus Mofor, Senior Environmental Affairs Officer in charge of energy, infrastructure, and climate change at the African Climate Policy Centre of the ECA and co-lead of the AFRI-RES initiative said that the global stocktake on climate action shows that we are still far from the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. So, it is important that COP28 operationalized the loss and damage fund that was launched at COP27 and delivered the Emirates Framework for Global Climate Resilience in support of the global goal on adaptation, including collaboration on enhancing the enabling environment to accelerate the mobilization of private finance for adaptation and resilience. The AFRI-RES initiative is thus well placed to support these outcomes of the COP28 in so doing supporting the climate resilience of Africa’s infrastructure.
Mr Aage Jorgensen, Director of Portfolio Origination & Management at the Nordic Development Fund which provided initial funding for AFRI-RES expressed satisfaction with ACRIS VI, which he describes as a huge success and has demonstrated the need for knowledge, capacity and skills to achieve climate-resilient development in Africa. Jorgensen added that Africa is the most affected continent in terms of climate change, and African countries lose between 5-15% of their GDP per year due to climate change. Therefore, initiatives like AFRI-RES continue to be relevant for decision-makers, planners, and other stakeholders in public and private sectors to be able to integrate climate resilience into their investments.
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