On the sidelines of the 2022 edition of Africa Climate Week(link is external), a session titled Limiting Loss and Damage through Enhanced Adaptation Action in Africa featured vibrant and timely discussion of an aspect of climate change that typically receives little attention: capturing and assessing the costs and damages associated with climate change.   

The African Development Bank and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation hosted the event, which provided a forum for panelists and participants to discuss the importance of defining and evaluating such losses and damages of properties, economies, lives and livelihoods due to climate disasters. Africa is acknowledged to be the continent most vulnerable to climate change.

Moderator Olufunso Somorin, a Regional Principal Officer at the African Development Bank, opened the discussion. He pointed out that it is important for African countries to measure climate-change related loss and damage to enable appropriate quantification and well-designed responses best suited to country context. It was also important to capture those losses occurred even in instances where preventive climate adaptation actions had been taken, he added.

Fatten Agad, Africa Climate Foundation’s Senior Advisor on Climate Diplomacy and Geopolitics, called for production of a report that would serve as guidance and baseline for evaluating climate related losses and damage. “It has already been demonstrated that the socio-economic impact faced by African countries in coping with the Covid-19 crisis has been very high, and adding a burden of financing something such as loss and damage would be unfair,” she said.

Anja Beretta, Konrad Adenauer’s Director for Energy Security and Climate Change in Africa, urged African countries to integrate mechanisms to address losses and damage into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). She also called for designated institutions and functioning structures to ensure the efficient and effective use of climate finance to advance the discussion on financial flows into loss and damage.

Stephane Bonamy, Head of the Regional Delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Cameroon, said, for countries that face both conflict and climate change impacts, it is imperative that preventive measures are put in place early enough to reduce the extent of loss and damage faced and lessen the burden on communities.” He noted that 14 of the 25 most vulnerable countries to climate change impacts worldwide also face some form of conflict.

Dr Olumide Abimbola, the Executive Director of the Africa Policy Research Institute in Berlin reiterated the need for more African examples of past and current loss and damage to be incorporated into textbooks and journals.

There was agreement among the participants on the need for Africa to prioritize timely, comprehensive and large-scale adaptation action to avert or minimize future losses and damages.

There was also consensus on the urgent need to scale up financial flows from public and private sources into adaptation action across Africa. They cited the African Development Bank’s Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program, a joint initiative with the Global Center on Adaptation, as a positive example. The program seeks to mobilize $25 billion over five years to accelerate and scale climate adaptation actions across the continent.

Participants also called for new strategic partnerships to drive adaptation policies, plans and investments in Africa through the implementation of NDCs and tapping synergies with such initiatives as the Africa Disaster Risk Financing program.

About the African Climate Week (ACW)

ACW is an annual event that engages and empowers stakeholders to drive climate action across countries, communities and economies. The event is organized by UN Climate Change in collaboration with global partners UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme and the World Bank Group. Partners in the region include the Africa Union, the Africa Development Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). ACW 2022 was hosted in Gabon.

What:      Africa Adaptation Dialogue: implementing the vision

When:     31 August 09:30 - 10:30 CAT

Where:    Libreville, Gabon

Who:       Global Center on Adaptation; Africa Adaptation Initiative (Chaired by Gabon); African Development Bank

Despite contributing the least to global warming, Africa finds itself on the frontline of the climate emergency, with the impacts of external shocks exacerbating these vulnerabilities. Indeed, large portions of Africa—particularly the drylands that cover three-fifths of the continent—are warming at a rate twice the global average, putting half a billion people at risk.

Chaired by Gabon, the Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI) aims to strengthen collaboration on adaptation across the continent. To implement this vision, the Global Center on Adaptation and the African Development Bank have jointly developed the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program – AAAP. This Africa-led, Africa-owned response is mobilizing $25 billion for climate adaptation investments in the continent over five years. This event will review progress of the AAAP and how it is contributing to narrowing the finance gap, thus accelerating the implementation of AAI.

Program

• Welcome Remarks by the Moderator

Davinah Milenge Uwella – Principal Programme Coordinator, African Development Bank

• Opening Video
• Opening Remarks

Dr. Kevin Kariuki – Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth, AfDB

• Framing remarks: The Africa Adaptation Initiative and the AAA

Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale – Special Advisor to His Excellency Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of the Gabonese Republic, Permanent Secretary of the National Climate Council

• The AAAP as the vehicle to implement the AAI vision

Prof. Anthony Nyong – Senior Director, and Africa Regional Director, Global Center on Adaptation

AAAP voices from the field

• AAAP partners and beneficiaries

Moderated discussion with participants

• Wrap up by the Moderator

Draft Program

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Financing Facility, covering Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. The Bank envisages to commit up to $379.6 million in financing and technical assistance for the facility over the next seven years.

The Desert to Power G5 Financing Facility aims to assist the G5 Sahel countries to adopt a low-emission power generation pathway by making use of the region’s abundant solar potential. The facility will focus on utility-scale solar generation through independent power producers and energy storage solutions. These investments will be backed by a technical assistance component to enhance implementation capacity, strengthen the enabling environment for private sector investments, and ensure gender and climate mainstreaming.

The facility is expected to result in 500 MW of additional solar generation capacity and facilitate electricity access to some 695,000 households. Over the lifespan of the project, it is expected to reduce carbon emissions by over 14.4 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The Board of the Green Climate Fund approved $150 million in concessional resources in October 2021 for the facility, which is expected to leverage around $437 million in additional financing from other development finance institutions, commercial banks and private sector developers. The Global Center on Adaptation is providing technical assistance to strengthen adaptation and resilience measures undertaken in the facility as part of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program in partnership with the African Development Bank.

The African Development Bank’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth, Dr. Kevin Kariuki said: “The innovative blended finance approach of the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Facility will de-risk, and therefore catalyze, private sector investment in solar power generation in the region. This will lead to transformational energy generation and bridge the energy access deficit in some of Africa’s most fragile countries.”

Dr. Daniel Schroth, the Bank’s Acting Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, added: “The facility will also support the integration of larger shares of variable renewables in the region’s power systems, notably through the deployment of innovative battery storage solutions and grid investments.”

The facility will be implemented as part of the broader Desert to Power initiative, a flagship program led by the African Development Bank. The objective is to light up and power the Sahel region by adding 10 GW of solar generation capacity and providing electricity to around 250 million people in the 11 Sahelian countries by 2030.

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