44 African Development Bank — Advancing Climate Change Action and Green Growth in Africa Creating enabling environments for climate actions and green investments Effective action on climate change and green growth cannot be undertaken without an enabling environment, in terms of the support structures that promote success. CCAP-II defined an enabling environment as comprising technology, capacity development, partnerships, institutional and policy reforms, and knowledge development. It also identified a wide range of measures to support it, including: strengthening readiness for accessing climate finance; enhancing RMC capacity for NDC, NAP, and LTS development, mainstreaming, financing and implementation; developing methods, guidance, and tools for climate change action; enabling technology transfer and innovation; creating green jobs; and fostering scientific research in climate change mitigation and adaptation (AfDB, 2016). By all accounts, the Bank has taken strong strides towards all of these. The NDC Hub’s membership grew each year during the CCAP-II period, and — through the Hub — the Bank engaged in policy dialogues with several African countries regarding their NDC development. The Hub has demonstrated partnership strength in driving actions toward delivering country climate commitments, for example through joint programming to support NDC revision in Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Guinea Bissau and capacity-building on climate finance access for African countries. The Bank also hosted the secretariat of the Africa Circular Economy Alliance, launched the Africa Circular Economy Facility, a partnership with the GCA, and AFAC, amongst others. AFAC is a noteworthy illustration of the Bank’s convening power, bringing together the entire African financial industry (development banks, commercial banks, central banks, insurance companies, sovereign wealth and pension funds, stock exchanges and regulators) to finance low-carbon and climate-resilient innovations. AFAC is unique as this is the first-time key actors in the financial sector are taking a leading role in driving climate action on the continent. Through AFAC, the Bank has been working with the financial industry and private investors to support private sector participation in climate finance delivery. Ongoing initiatives include the provision of technical assistance to Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa to enhance private sector investment in the implementation of the NDCs, and the development of guidelines for greening lines of credit in Africa. Under CCAP-II, the Bank also developed and published a plethora of knowledge products and guidance tools. While support to the enabling environment is invaluable for African countries, one of the challenges of investments in the enabling environment is the difficulty of ascertaining the measurable impact of such initiatives. A key takeaway is that, moving forward, efforts will be well-invested in assessing whether partnerships, platforms, and alliances increase available climate finance; assist the Bank’s climate finance to reach a wider, more diverse set of beneficiaries; or bring about other discernible improvements. Similarly, it will be important to track and assess whether the Bank’s assistance is correlated with more ambitious and effectively implemented NDCs, including the achievement of greater levels of NDC targets. Commitments under the new strategic framework While there is a multitude of institutional actors working to strengthen the enabling environment in Africa and to enhance capacity, the Bank — as a multilateral institution with a membership of African countries — is well positioned to lend its strengths to bolstering the enabling environment across the continent. It works directly with governments and other financial institutions, and is deeply embedded in agenda-setting processes at the continental and regional level. Achieving the vision of Africa espoused by the Bank will require that national stakeholders — including both governments and civil society organisations in African countries — be engaged, empowered, and equipped to assume ownership of their development agendas over the long term. The Bank has a successful track record of supporting enabling environments at the country level, such as through the preparation of Country Strategy Papers and Regional Integration Strategy Papers, through policy dialogues that shape national and sectoral governance instruments, as well as through trust fund investments that directly target capacity-building within national and regional institutions. Building on this track record, the Bank will also leverage its convening power and draw on the strength of its partnerships to enhance Africa’s knowledge-base on climate change and green growth, and to reach more beneficiaries, ensuring that the partnerships reflect the different contexts of African countries and respond with flexibility and nuance to different national circumstances. The Africa NDC Hub is expected to be a prominent platform through which the Bank will continue to strengthen partnerships and support the enabling environment for climate change on
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=