ADISS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - The African civil society under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has constituted new Board of Directors that will align the roadmap for climate justice agenda for the next three years.
During PACJA General Congress in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the 2023 Africa Union Summit, members from over 50 African countries came together to set out the blue print for a more engaging climate action in the aftermath of the 27th round of climate negotiations in Egypt. The 2023 general congress was held under the theme, “accountability and stock taking.”
According to the Executive Director of PACJA Dr Mithika Mwenda, Africa is the most impacted by climate change but the least responsible and informed.
“We need to empower our local communities both with the resources and right knowledge to enable them better fight climate change” said Mithika.
Climate change accordingly impacts vulnerable communities in Africa in particular and the world at large such as smallholder producers, indigenous people, women, children, youth, many of whom live in fragile ecosystems and rely on natural resources for their livelihood.
Experts agree that the combined impact of the climate crisis, COVID 19, deepening debt burden, Russia-Ukraine war and skyrocketing food and energy prices, resulting into increased cost of living for millions of people across the globe, especially those at the frontline of climate change impacts, necessitates urgent concerted action both at grass root and international levels.
It is against this backdrop that PACJA and its partners are calling for collective efforts and the needed resources to drive innovative actions of the ground.
Dr Mithika lauded the multiple partners that have stood by the strong civil society movement in the African continent to push the various stakeholders to action in addressing climate change.
“Our actions cannot be successful without the support of these donor institutions and we are calling on all to come on board so that we can better strengthen our engagements” Mithika said.
It should be recalled that the President of the African Development Bank Group Dr Akinwumi Adesina reiterated on the power of civil society organizations last year in a climate conference in Ivory Coast, harping on their contribution in pushing the Bank’s effort to build the continent’s resilience to climate change.
“We will need civil society organizations, to strongly advocate for and support the 16th replenishment of Fund, as it holds great promise for supporting the most vulnerable in the face of climate change devastation,” the Bank chief said at the climate forum.
One of the actions driven very powerfully in the African continent as pathways to address climate change crisis is the embrace of renewable energy. PACJA says one of its strategic initiatives in the climate change drive is ensuring a people-centered energy transition in Africa through civil society engagement.
According to Dr Augustine Njamnshi, coordinator of the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access, ACSEA renewable energy has to be put at the center of all climate change actions.
“The ACSEA project aims to strengthen civil society’s role in promoting and implementing sustainable energy transition initiatives including renewable NDCs in Africa, influence renewable energy policy development at domestic, national and global levels” Njamnshi said.
PACJA new Board Chair Najwa Bourawi from Tunisia also emphasized on the need for a sustainable energy transition in Africa for the continent to meet its needs for socio-economic development.
“The time is critical. We must act quickly in the renewable energy transition to address the shocks of climate change that are affecting the African people,” Najwa said.
The General Congress also saw the election of members to head the executive council of PACJA and heads of different committees of the board of the organization for the next three years. These committees include the technical and political committee, the finance and administrative committee, the ethics and arbitration committee, the recruitment and credentials committee. Also elected to the continental committee was the Isaiah Esipisu, the Continental Coordinator for PAMACC.
LOME, Togo (PAMACC News) - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a dual-currency Trade Finance Line of Credit for ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) comprising $50 million and EUR 50 million. An additional co-financing of $30 million for the credit line will come through the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
EBID will use the three-and-a-half-year facility to provide direct financing to local corporates. Part of the facility will also be channelled through select local banks for on-lending to key sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, and transport. The ultimate beneficiaries will be Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SMEs), local enterprises cooperatives and farmers in the West Africa region.
Speaking soon after the Board approval, the Deputy Director General for the West Africa Region, Joseph Ribeiro noted that regional development finance institutions like EBID are key partners of the African Development Bank and serve markets and client segments critical to the overall development of the continent.
“They play an important role in promoting trade and regional integration. This is the Bank’s first financing support to EBID, and we look forward to an even stronger partnership in the near future,” he said.
The Bank’s Head of Trade Finance, Lamin Drammeh, stressed the critical need for such support in the region. “We are excited to work with EBID to increase access to trade finance in the ECOWAS region with a special focus on the agriculture value chain, SMEs and women-owned businesses”, he said. “Regional institutions like EBID complement the Bank’s efforts to bridge the trade finance gap in Africa and serve as an effective conduit for channeling much-needed funds to underserved countries and sectors”, he added.
The African Development Bank estimates the annual trade finance gap for Africa to be around $81 billion. Compared to multinational corporates and large local corporates, SMEs and other domestic firms have greater difficulty in accessing trade finance.
LOME, Togo (PAMACC News) - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a dual-currency Trade Finance Line of Credit for ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) comprising $50 million and EUR 50 million. An additional co-financing of $30 million for the credit line will come through the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
EBID will use the three-and-a-half-year facility to provide direct financing to local corporates. Part of the facility will also be channelled through select local banks for on-lending to key sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, and transport. The ultimate beneficiaries will be Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SMEs), local enterprises cooperatives and farmers in the West Africa region.
Speaking soon after the Board approval, the Deputy Director General for the West Africa Region, Joseph Ribeiro noted that regional development finance institutions like EBID are key partners of the African Development Bank and serve markets and client segments critical to the overall development of the continent.
“They play an important role in promoting trade and regional integration. This is the Bank’s first financing support to EBID, and we look forward to an even stronger partnership in the near future,” he said.
The Bank’s Head of Trade Finance, Lamin Drammeh, stressed the critical need for such support in the region. “We are excited to work with EBID to increase access to trade finance in the ECOWAS region with a special focus on the agriculture value chain, SMEs and women-owned businesses”, he said. “Regional institutions like EBID complement the Bank’s efforts to bridge the trade finance gap in Africa and serve as an effective conduit for channeling much-needed funds to underserved countries and sectors”, he added.
The African Development Bank estimates the annual trade finance gap for Africa to be around $81 billion. Compared to multinational corporates and large local corporates, SMEs and other domestic firms have greater difficulty in accessing trade finance.
DIAMNIADIO, Senegal, (PAMACC News) - The African Development Bank Group will invest $10 billion over the next five years to boost Africa’s efforts to end hunger and become a global breadbasket.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Africa Food Summit in Diamniadio, Senegal, the Bank Group’s President Dr Akinwumi Adesina called on more than 34 heads of state, 70 government ministers, the private sector, farmers, development partners, and corporate executives present at the summit, to work out compacts that would deliver food and agriculture transformation at scale across Africa..
He encouraged them to take collective action to unlock the continent’s agricultural potential to become a global breadbasket.
The summit, also known as Dakar 2 – under the theme Feed Africa: food sovereignty and resilience—takes place amid supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More than a thousand delegates and dignitaries attended, including the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins.
The government of Senegal and the African Development Bank Group are co-hosting the summit, eight years after the inaugural Dakar 1 summit where the then newly elected President Adesina announced the Bank’s Feed Africa strategy.
Opening the summit, President Sall—who is also the African Union chairperson—said the time had come for the continent to feed itself by adding value and stepping up the use of technology.
“From the farm to the plate, we need full food sovereignty, and we must increase land under cultivation and market access to enhance cross-border trade,” Sall said.
Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat said the Dakar summit was timely and would provide innovative solutions to help Africa become less dependent on food imports.
“Food sovereignty should be our new weapon of freedom,” Mahamat said. Addressing the audience, he urged development partners to work together within existing structures, such as Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area, for sustainable transformation.
Mahamat commended the African Development Bank for rolling out transformative initiatives, including a $1.5 billion emergency food production facility in 2022 to help African countries avert a potential food crisis following Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The President of Kenya, William Ruto, said, “It is a shame that 60 years after independence, we are gathered to talk about feeding ourselves. We can and we must do better.”
The African Development Bank Group chief said: “Today over 283 million Africans go to bed hungry every day. This is not acceptable. No mother should ever have to struggle with rumbling of the stomach of a hungry child.”
“We must raise the bar. We must raise our ambition. We must arise and say to ourselves: it is time to feed Africa. The timing is right, and the moment is now. Feed Africa; we must,” said Adesina.
The bank head urged the leaders to turn political will into decisive actions to deliver food security for Africa, “We must strongly support farmers, especially smallholder farmers, majority of whom are women, and get more young people into agriculture. And we must take agriculture as a business, not a development activity, and boost support to the private sector.”
President Higgins of Ireland said with Africa’s young population accounting for about 20% of the world’s young people, the continent had great potential. He said the rest of the world would look up to it in the future.
“Let us make this century Africa’s Century, one which will see the continent become free from hunger,” Higgins said.
In his message to the summit read on his behalf, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged that Africa was currently facing the challenges of climate change and food insecurity, as the Russia-Ukraine war had caused the price of fertilizers to shoot up and made their supply difficult.
Guterres pledged the UN’s support to help Africa become a global food powerhouse.
President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria said countries must offer more robust support for farmers, dedicate a chunk of the national budget to agriculture, and motivate youth and women to farm.
“Feeding Africa is imperative. We must ensure we feed ourselves today, tomorrow, and well into the future,” Buhari said.
The Nigerian president commended Dr Adesina and the African Development Bank for rolling out special agro-industrial processing zones across the continent, including in Nigeria.
He said: “Special agro-industrial processing zones are game changers for the structural development of the agriculture sectors. They will help us generate wealth, develop integrated infrastructure around special agro-processing zones, and add value.”
During the three-day summit, private sector players are expected to commit to national food and agriculture delivery compacts, to drive policies, create structural reforms, and attract private sector investment.
Central bank governors and finance ministers are expected to develop financing arrangements to implement the food and agriculture delivery compacts, in conjunction with agriculture ministers, private sector players, commercial banks, financial institutions, and multilateral partners and organisations.
