The Bank’s Current Activities on Climate Change
The African Development Bank is poised to be an important player in addressing the development challenges resulting from climate change in the African continent. Its focus is on capacity strengthening and advocacy as well as substantial investments in climate change adaptation initiatives including clean energy and energy security.
Capacity Strengthening and Advocacy
The Bank has been developing both analytical work and information systems including protocols on climate change issues. With the view to build its internal institutional capacity, the Bank has been providing systematic training to task managers and technical advice to mainstream climate change issues into project design. The Bank support to RMCs includes strengthening institutional capacity in clean energy and climate risk management. The AfDB also seeks to strengthen the capacity of its partner organizations that co-finance projects and their involvment in project implementation. Mainstreaming a gender perspective into the activities of climate change is an area that the Bank takes seriously.
During the 2009 African Ministerial Conference on Financing for Development, which focused on Climate Change, the Bank sought to develop a common African position for post-Kyoto. The AfDB will continue this effort at the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen.
In 2009 the Bank also initiated work to strengthen the national institutional capacity of its member countries on climate resilience. For instance, with the support of the Portuguese Trust Fund, the Bank initiated work to develop programmatic action plan for climate risk management in Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, and Guinea Bissau.
Investments in adaptation and clean energy activities
The AfDB is mobilizing a range of new resources (financial, technical and programmatic) for adaptation initiatives and clean energy activities. One of the major aspects of its CRMA strategy is to ensure “climate proofing” activities are integrated into Bank operations. This includes the development and testing of methodologies, analytical tools, knowledge networks, decision-making guidelines and training materials. Another area of work is to integrate climate change adaptation concerns into Bank operation systems (e.g. project approval procedures, country strategy papers, project operation safeguards).
The Bank recently completed a climate-risk screening exercise of its most recent projects and a screening tool on ‘climate proofing’ of projects for use by task managers within the Bank. This tool will be progressively made available to the public. Currently, the Bank is developing country and sector climate vulnerability profiles to enhance climate resilience in its investments. The tools will be used in the designing of adaptation programs in climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water resources, coastal areas, infrastructure, health and biodiversity. The Climate Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF) include essential tools, data and information, and methods that enable Bank staff to identify and manage climate risks and formulate and introduce adaptations at the sub-regional, country, sector, and program and project levels.
The Bank’s approved in November 2009 the project for supporting the institutional capacities of the African regional climate centers (ACMAD, AGHRYMET, ICPAC and DMC). This flagship project, placed under the umbrella of the Clim’Dev Africa Programme, aims at strengthening the capacities of African regional climate centers to generate and make widely available relevant climate information to support development planning processes in the continent.
The Bank is working on carbon financing opportunities in Africa, by developing a capacity and knowledge needs assessment including training for Bank staff and RMCs on the CDM of the Kyoto Protocol. In this regard, it identified CDM eligible projects and will continue its portfolio screening. As stipulated under the requirements of the UNFCCC Project Identification Notes (PINs) and Project Design Documents (PDD) are being prepared for these projects.