110 African Development Bank — Advancing Climate Change Action and Green Growth in Africa corporations, as well as households. The Bank, as a multilateral development bank, is one of many possible managers of this capital. Meanwhile, the Bank and other managers of capital have a range of financial instruments that can be deployed to support project owners. Finance for projects that support climate-resilient and low-carbon development can be counted as climate finance. Other finance may be benign without a direct influence on GHG emissions or climate resilience. Together with adaptation and mitigation finance, benign finance can be included as climate-compatible finance. Meanwhile some finance may increase GHG emissions or increase climate change vulnerability and is clearly incompatible with the Paris Agreement. As such, project options are very important, and ideally all reasonable responses to climate change should be considered when developing projects. The extent to which climate finance meets climate finance needs is an important question. One way of estimating climate finance needs is to look at NDCs submitted by RMCs. However, the extent to which these estimated finance needs are evidence based is difficult to assess. Given uncertainties around climate change impacts to come, and the risk of impacts, it is debatable whether realistic economic estimates can be made. That said, the estimated financial needs are considerable in aggregate, but are modest at a per capita level at just over $100 per person all up, or $3 per person per year for adaptation costs. However, the challenge of mobilizing finance remains, including the longterm finance under the Copenhagen Accord. At $100 billion per year, this would go a long way, but this was not a pledge from governments, and could include finance leveraged from the private sector. As such, long term finance and other sources of climate finance are disappointingly difficult to monitor and verify. Ideally, the Bank will be involved in setting financial MRV standards. This requires the Bank to have effective MERL systems in place, so it can speak to its own practices, and hence, from an evidence-based position of authority on the global stage. The Bank is only one of many financial institutions and sources of finance to support climate resilient low-carbon development. Other actors include the governments of RMCs, private sector investors and banks, as well as other multilateral development banks and funds. The Bank needs to consider its climate change strategy, policies, and actions taking into account these other actors, how they work together and influence each other, and how they contribute to the fulfilment of the Paris Agreement and RMC development agendas. Pillar 4 on creating an enabling environment An important part of mobilizing and delivering climate finance, as well as climate-related knowledge and operations, is an enabling environment. In the context of climate change, this includes: mainstreaming climate change at the Bank; enhancing the Bank as well as RMC capacity; having partnerships and good governance arrangements; effective and efficient internal processes; regular MERL exercises; knowledge services and generation to support the Bank and stakeholders in decisionmaking; effective internal and external communications; and supporting NDCs. These are key themes to come out of a thematic analysis of CCAPrelated evaluations and annual reports. Mainstreaming climate change remains a challenge, not least because it is yet another priority that people in the Bank need to factor into their considerable workload. To date, there has been success including climate change considerations at the design phase of projects, but operational decisions influence the extent to which designs are implemented, including adaptation and mitigation elements of projects. While these considerations are a core focus of staff in the PECG, they are not so for many staff outside of PECG who are involved in projects. Continued internal capacity development and mainstreaming into processes may help, but so would making climate change a core concern of all staff, by increasing the focus of the Bank on “sustainable economic development and social progress” as per the Charter. For example, it could be possible to change the name of the Bank to the “African Sustainable Development Bank.” This would change climate change and green growth considerations from being an “add on” to becoming a part of every department’s core considerations. With regards to the Bank’s capacity, having staff in country offices to work with RMCs on project proposals and applications has been shown to be effective. At the same time, staff need tools and guidance as well as information on adaptation and mitigation to support them in their work and decision making. Given the breadth of climate change issues, no single person can address all issues based on their own knowledge. In addition to the Bank’s capacity, RMC and client capacity is important. This includes the capacity of governments, businesses, and civil society to prepare project proposals, apply for funding, and deliver projects along with monitoring and reporting. Complicating matters, capacity depends on people as well as processes in institutions. In many cases people move on to other institutions. In short, a continuous supply of capacity is needed, so each institution has people coming on board with more, rather than less, knowledge. Capacity development
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