This year, Edith Ofwona Adera, Coordinator of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) and the African Development Bank’s Regional Principal Officer for Climate Change and Green Growth, marked International Women’s Day in a special way.

Adera took part in a panel discussion organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat, reflecting this year’s theme: Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.

The panel, hosted by Jennifer Namgyal of the Commonwealth Secretariat, brought together experts who shared their experiences and lessons learned on integrating gender equality in Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, across their respective regions and institutions. NDCs are national plans highlighting climate actions, including targets, policies and measures that governments aim to implement.

Hannah Girardeau, of the NDC Partnership Support Unit, kicked off the session with a presentation on the findings of an analysis of gender considerations in revised NDCs of the partnership’s member countries. The assessment revealed that more countries had now included the fundamental building blocks of gender-responsive climate action in their policies and plans.  Girardeau noted that there is a need to invest in other critical elements such as conducting gender analyses, developing indicators, and establishing gender-responsive budgets to complement progress achieved.

Adera agreed with her. “As climate change impacts affect people differently, the responses need to be differentiated, based on identified unique needs, informed by disaggregated data,” Adera added.

To address this challenge, the African Development Bank is supporting national statistical systems in five countries through a Capacity Building for Gender Statistics and Monitoring Systems project. The project aims to produce quality, comparable and regular gender statistics to address national data gaps, strengthen monitoring systems, and integrate gender indicators across sectors.

Bertha Chiudza of the Green Climate Fund said a key requirement for all its financed activities is to ensure gender considerations are included in the development of action plans and assessments. “For its support on Nationally Determined Contributions, the Green Climate Fund ensures that gender considerations are brought in from planning and design, implementation and reporting across the sectors prioritized by countries, while ensuring inclusive stakeholder consultations,” Chiudza stated.

Sasha Jattansingh, the Commonwealth Climate Finance Adviser, gave insights into Antigua and Barbuda’s actions to mainstream gender equality into Nationally Determined Contributions. The country recognized equity issues and committed to a just energy transition with a strong focus on gender, Jattansingh noted. Antigua and Barbuda is an example of a country that has made progress in developing an inclusive renewable energy strategy that promotes socially inclusive, gender-responsive, and accessible investment opportunities.

Anna Rojas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature also shared her experiences and lessons in integrating gender into Nationally Determined Contributions, pointing out that biodiversity issues are now being integrated more consistently in these plans. She called for local-level conversations with women to tap into their strengths and rich knowledge. “Engagement with women will avoid dismal adaptation because, the more we identify needs, strengths, and solutions, the better we will be prepared,” she emphasized.

The African Development Bank is rolling out a detailed analysis of climate-gender hotspots in Rwanda. Adera said it would highlight real gender gaps and deep vulnerabilities, and how best climate interventions can address these gender issues.

Finance also emerged as one of the vital tools to promote gender equality in Nationally Determined Contributions. Innovative financial instruments and solutions must come into play when addressing gender inequalities for climate change interventions, noted Unnikrishnan Nair of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Two months to the 27th global climate summit (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, African and other global leaders have rallied in Rotterdam, to highlight the urgency of climate adaptation funding for the continent.

The meetings—co-convened by the President of the African Development Bank Group Dr Akinwumi Adesina, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) Professor Patrick Verkooijen, and African Union Commission Chair Mousa Faki Mahamat—was unanimous about the need for concrete action and finance.

Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and GCA Co-Chair said: “The world has a fever. It burns hotter and higher with every day that passes… Statistics tell us that Africa is where the fever is at its most intense and people at the most vulnerable.”

GCA Co-Chair and Honorary Chairman of Royal DSM Feike Sijbesma spoke about the importance of support from the global private sector. He said 80% of the funding for adaptation needs to come from the private sector in both the developed north and the developing south.

GCA Chief Executive Officer Patrick Verkooijen emphasized the disastrous impacts of climate change hitting all parts of the world. He said it is in Africa, however, that climate shocks will hit the hardest. He said Africa was resolute about its economic advancement and would not stop. “Adaptation in Africa is like climbing a mountain. With all of you here today, we have the dream team that will climb the mountain together.”

Verkooijen added: “The next summit after today is Sharm El-Sheikh, the Africa COP. But success in Egypt will hinge on whether Africa’s needs are met or not. Africa has the commitment and the plan. That plan is the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAA-P). It is Africa-developed and Africa-owned. It was launched by Africa’s leaders, who are here today. It is the vehicle for delivering the Africa Adaptation Initiative.”

Established in 2020 by the GCA and the African Development Bank, the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program lies at the center of climate action on the African continent. Participants acknowledged Verkooijen’s and Adesina’s joint efforts as the driving forces behind the program.

African Union Chairperson, President Macky Sall of Senegal, President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, who is Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, and President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic of the Congo conveyed a unified message: the international community must deliver on its pledge to double adaptation finance and to scale adaptation action for Africa.

President Sall expressed disappointment at the absence of industrialized country leaders at the summit. The African Union Chair said if African leaders could be in Rotterdam in person to discuss such a crucial issue as climate adaptation in Africa, the very least they expected was that their European counterparts—whose countries are among the world’s biggest polluters—would also have been present at the summit.

This sentiment was shared by Presidents Akufo-Addo and Tshisekedi, African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat and UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, among others. Mohammed said: “A bird only flies with two wings, and the representation at this table is lopsided.”

The UN deputy chief added that it was not Africa’s fault that it is in its current position, given that it contributes very little to global carbon emissions. She pondered on what the situation would have been if the roles had been reversed. Mohammed said the COP26 Glasgow pact was at risk of failing if the developed world did not make good on its promises of delivering $100 billion a year for climate action in developing countries.

In his intervention(link is external), Adesina reminded participants that the African continent was warming faster than any other region of the world, as predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that the critical global warming levels will be reached much earlier in Africa.

The African Development Bank chief explained that in the face of the deluge, Africa does not have the resources to tackle climate change. He said the continent receives only 3% of global climate financing. He noted that if this trend continued, Africa’s climate financing gap could reach between $100 billion to $127 billion per year through 2030.

Adesina said: “The current climate financing architecture is not meeting the needs of Africa. New estimates by the African Economic Outlook of the African Development Bank show that Africa will need between 1.3 and 1.6 trillion dollars from 2020 to 2030, or $118 billion to $145 billion annually to implement its commitments to the Paris Agreement and its nationally determined contributions.”

The African Development Bank chief said the African Adaptation Acceleration Program’s upstream facility at the GCA had already helped to generate $3 billion of mainstreamed climate adaptation investments by the African Development Bank, from agriculture to energy, transport, water, and sanitation.

Adesina spoke of the African Development Bank’s African Development Fund (ADF), its concessionary lending arm as one of the ways to address the climate financing gap. He said the 16th replenishment of the fund, currently underway, presented a unique opportunity for full financing of the $12.5 billion in financing for the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program.

The African Development Bank chief explained that the African Development Fund had introduced a Climate Action Window that would hopefully mobilize $4 billion to $13 billion for climate adaptation for the Fund’s member countries. “This will be used to support 20 million farmers with access to climate resilient agricultural technologies, access of 20 million farmers and pastoralists to weather-indexed crop insurance, reviving 1 million hectares of degraded land, and provision of renewable energy for about 9.5 million people.

Adesina said commitments by developed countries to provide $100 billion annually in climate finance for developing countries was long overdue. “Africa cannot wait,” he emphasized. “This is the time to support the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program. This is the time to support the ADF 16th replenishment. This is the time to support the Climate Action Window of ADF-16.”

World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also lent her voice to the clarion call for additional resources for Africa adaptation funding. Speaking about the role of trade in climate adaptation, she said trade policies should be integrated into global climate action as an amplifying force for financing and other climate-related support provided to vulnerable economies.

The summit’s five-point Communique(link is external) highlighted that Africa was at a tipping point. It emphasized that success at COP27 will depend on whether the needs of Africa, the world’s most climate-vulnerable continent, are met with finance flowing into such key country-led adaptation programs as the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program.

GCA Co-Chair Feike Sijbesma said in closing: “Investments in global climate adaptation cooperation are a big opportunity for countries like the Netherlands to share some of our best innovations with those who need them the most. The AAAP will be a crucial vehicle for triggering far greater business investment across Africa into green and resilient solutions. This is a collective effort, we need every sector, every contribution possible to see off the climate crisis in Africa, and the private sector, in particular, has a massive role to play.”