The government of the United States of America has reinforced its focal commitment to achieving the lofty objectives of the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) with an additional funding of US$11 million.
At a signing ceremony which held today within the precincts of the U.S Centre pavilion at the ongoing 22nd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Marrakech, Morocco, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Power Africa initiative provided a second tranche of funding of US$11 million towards fulfilling its overall commitment of US$20 million to the African Development Bank-led Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.
Saluting the US government’s commitment to SEFA, Amadou Hott, AfDB’s Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, remarked that the second tranche will expand the important work already underway in components 1 and 3 of SEFA that support project preparation and enabling environment reforms.
“This demonstration of donor coordination through pooled resources serves as a model and signals to the international community our joint level of commitment to these crucial goals of generation and access,” Hott says.
The AfDB Vice President who has vast experience in structuring finance for power and energy projects with a passion for solving Africa’s power and energy need especially in renewable energy and balanced energy mix, likened the signing ceremony as a boost for the bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa which is aimed at helping the continent to achieve universal electricity access by 2025 with a strong focus on encouraging clean and renewable energy solutions.
Andrew M. Herscowitz of Power Africa who moderated the event and signed on behalf of the US government expressed satisfaction with the SEFA-driven mechanisms which have succeeded in increasing access to small and medium-scale renewable energy generation and energy efficiency as well as providing project preparation grants to attain bankability status.
According to Herscowitz, “Power Africa has already injected a first payment of US$5 million into SEFA which directly supports the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa that ensures universal access to modern energy services; doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global mix.”
Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa for the U.S Trade and Development Agency, Lida Fitts, Chris Hornor, Founder and CEO, PowerHive, and Kevin Connolly of the Affordable Access Initiatives who participated at the signing ceremony lauded the U.S government-led partnership with SEFA which aims to add 30,000 MW of cleaner and more efficient generation capacity.
Fitts added that an addition of 60 million new home and business connections will unlock the energy sector potential through policy reforms and removal of barriers that impede sustainable energy development in sub-Saharan Africa.
While Power Africa offers renewable energy developers the combined resources of 12 U.S. government agencies, the World Bank Group, the AfDB, the Governments of Canada, the EU, Japan, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as partner African governments and more than 120 private sector partners, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) is a multi-donor effort developed with an initial pledge between the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Government of Denmark in 2011.
Subsequently, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy pledged further contributions, bringing the total fund capitalization to an equivalent of US$95 million by the end of 2015. SEFA promotes African ownership, inclusiveness and a comprehensive approach to implementation in the 44 African countries that have joined the Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
It provides guidance to African governments and energy stakeholders, delivers technical assistance, fosters networking and communication, and contributes towards finance mobilisation. The SEFA goals are developed through a multi-stakeholder process that brings together government actors, development partners, private sector and civil society
The government of the United States of America has reinforced its focal commitment to achieving the lofty objectives of the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) with an additional funding of US$11 million.
At a signing ceremony which held today within the precincts of the U.S Centre pavilion at the ongoing 22nd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Marrakech, Morocco, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Power Africa initiative provided a second tranche of funding of US$11 million towards fulfilling its overall commitment of US$20 million to the African Development Bank-led Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.
Saluting the US government’s commitment to SEFA, Amadou Hott, AfDB’s Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, remarked that the second tranche will expand the important work already underway in components 1 and 3 of SEFA that support project preparation and enabling environment reforms.
“This demonstration of donor coordination through pooled resources serves as a model and signals to the international community our joint level of commitment to these crucial goals of generation and access,” Hott says.
The AfDB Vice President who has vast experience in structuring finance for power and energy projects with a passion for solving Africa’s power and energy need especially in renewable energy and balanced energy mix, likened the signing ceremony as a boost for the bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa which is aimed at helping the continent to achieve universal electricity access by 2025 with a strong focus on encouraging clean and renewable energy solutions.
Andrew M. Herscowitz of Power Africa who moderated the event and signed on behalf of the US government expressed satisfaction with the SEFA-driven mechanisms which have succeeded in increasing access to small and medium-scale renewable energy generation and energy efficiency as well as providing project preparation grants to attain bankability status.
According to Herscowitz, “Power Africa has already injected a first payment of US$5 million into SEFA which directly supports the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa that ensures universal access to modern energy services; doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global mix.”
Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa for the U.S Trade and Development Agency, Lida Fitts, Chris Hornor, Founder and CEO, PowerHive, and Kevin Connolly of the Affordable Access Initiatives who participated at the signing ceremony lauded the U.S government-led partnership with SEFA which aims to add 30,000 MW of cleaner and more efficient generation capacity.
Fitts added that an addition of 60 million new home and business connections will unlock the energy sector potential through policy reforms and removal of barriers that impede sustainable energy development in sub-Saharan Africa.
While Power Africa offers renewable energy developers the combined resources of 12 U.S. government agencies, the World Bank Group, the AfDB, the Governments of Canada, the EU, Japan, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as partner African governments and more than 120 private sector partners, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) is a multi-donor effort developed with an initial pledge between the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Government of Denmark in 2011.
Subsequently, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy pledged further contributions, bringing the total fund capitalization to an equivalent of US$95 million by the end of 2015. SEFA promotes African ownership, inclusiveness and a comprehensive approach to implementation in the 44 African countries that have joined the Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
It provides guidance to African governments and energy stakeholders, delivers technical assistance, fosters networking and communication, and contributes towards finance mobilisation. The SEFA goals are developed through a multi-stakeholder process that brings together government actors, development partners, private sector and civil society
The World Bank says an investment of over two billion dollars is required to fully develop and modernise Africa’s hydromet services.
World Bank Senior Director, Ede Jorge Ijjasz-Vasquez said more partners are required to upscale the resource envelop from the initial US $600 million that the bank committed last year.
“Without strong hydromet services, Africa’s developmental gains will be in jeopardy as millions of people could fall back into poverty reversing economic gains that Africa has made over the past years,” Ijjasz-Vasquez told delegates at a side event during the on-going COP 22 in Marrakech, Morocco.
While thanking new partners such as the United Nations Development Programme, World Food Programme and Agence Francaise Development,Ijjasz-Vasquez urged for more partnerships adding that “two billion dollars plus is required to improve hydromet services in Africa.”
At COP 21, the World Bank in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Meteorological Organization announced a US $600 million programme to improve hydro-meteorological services in 15 West African countries.
The programme, Strengthening Climate Change and Disaster Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa, aims at improving meteorological services through infrastructure and capacity building in latest meteorological technologies for a reliable and timely capture and transmission of meteorological information to the public.
And speaking earlier, Africa Development Bank (AfDB) Coordinator for Clim-Dev Special Fund, Justus Kabyemera said it was sad that Africa is losing colossal sums of money to cope with disasters that could be avoided if strong hydromet services were in place.
“Many of you will recall the recent drought in Southern Africa. Its impact has been catastrophic, affecting food security, livelihoods and entire economies and causing serious disruption to the regional development agenda,” said Kabyemera adding that an estimated 32 million people will be food insecure between June 2016 and March 2017 including 18.6 million people who will require humanitarian assistance, with an estimated cost of US $ 1.2 billion to respond.
The major weakness noted in Africa lies mainly in the national and regional Hydromet systems, which lacks capacity to collect and deliver timely prior information or alerts that could assist preparedness and contingency planning to address negative impacts.
It is for this reason that through the Hydromet programme, the World Meteorological Organisation has prioritised the development of national strategies on hydromet and link them to National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).
“As a major step to mainstream climate information services, WMO is working to help facilitate the development of national strategies on hydromet and this will be linked to the bigger adaptation picture—the National Adaptation Processes (NAPs),” said Elena Manaenkova, Deputy Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
And in shading some light on the gravity of in-country challenges, Zambian Minister of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection Lloyd Mulenga Kaziya lamented the dwindling climate information services and called for urgent support from cooperating partners to address the information gap especially for the rural poor.
“Zambia is deeply affected, in the past five years, our rivers have been drying up while the frequency of droughts has increased affecting our smallholder farmers in terms of production, and to make matters worse, information flow to the affected communities is not readily available,” said Kaziya adding that the southern African country requires urgent support to upgrade hydromet systems and integrate them in all key sectors such as Mining, Energy and Agriculture.
COP 22 has been dubbed the implementation conference and the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) is not leaving anything to chance. It has been pushing for the adaptation agenda to ensure that the continent benefits through an increased allocation of resources to adaptation and not mitigation.
Under the auspices of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN), the African Adaptation Initiative was launched at COP 21, with the aim of coordinating the continent’s adaptation activities including at the UNFCCC negotiating table.
“The hydromet programme comes at an opportune time when there is political capital as expressed by our leaders at the highest level, and it is important to advantage of this political will by coordinating hydromet and the Africa Adaptation Initiative to avoid duplication of activities,” said Kulthoum Omari, Chair, AGN, Africa Adaptation Initiative.
Hydromet services are key to strengthening resilience to climate change by providing early warning services especially for rural poor whose livelihoods are largely dependent on natural resource based activities such as agriculture.
MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Experts at the ongoing climate talks in Marrakech have advocated the development and adoption of a policy and strategic framework that support expansion and mainstreaming of sustainable tourism certification in Africa.
Speaking at a side event in the Africa pavilion on the second day of the COP22 climate conference, water and tourism experts were unanimous in their view that African states should encourage and incentivise green certification of tourism, specifically in relation to monitoring and reducing water and waste.
This, according to them, will set the stage for existing African and International certification programs to have adequate criteria, and established processes and systems for working with the hotel sector to assess and monitor their waste and water management systems.
In addition to other environmental, social and socio-economic components of sustainable tourism, the framework will provide a mechanism to recognise that certification standards use a common and comprehensive approach to sustainability as well as summarise existing monitoring data being gathered by national tourism authorities and international/regional certification bodies specifically relating to the accommodation sector in Africa.
According to Dr. Anna Spenceley, a consultant with the African Development Bank (AfDB), African states can integrate sustainability criteria into their hotel quality-rating programs as a way of supporting Sustainable Development Goal 12 which places emphasis on responsible consumption and production, and also contribute to the objectives of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Tourism.
Jean Michel Ossete, the Coordinator of the African Water Facility, jointly sponsored by the AfDB and the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) believes that the AfDB could support member states to raise awareness on the benefits of sustainable tourism certification in Africa particularly those with currently low levels of certification,improve linkages between established certification programs and member states, where there the program is aligned with the country’s objectives, and providing guidance on the design and implementation of incentives to promote improved waste and water management.
Recognising that sustainable tourism certification provides an independent mechanism for evaluating and measuring water and waste management in African hotels, Oseloka Zikora of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) advocated support for the development of national waste and water management capacity, to ensure that countries are able and willing to establish and enabling policy framework for good practices, and that hotels can implement them.
“This should be done by providing technical advice and mentoring to governments on how they can promote better water and waste management and certification in the hotel sector through congruent policies, including through incentives, commissioning and sharing research findings on the financial and non-financial benefits of certification, and of good waste and water management practices, that provides clear quantification of the benefits that can be understood by decision makers,” Zikora added.
He further recommended the adoption of a train-the-trainers approach to making the outreach cost effective and locally relevant, as well as establish an online resource library containing tools on waste and water management, training guides and case study examples.
The experts also agreed on the need to develop external coordination and cooperation mechanisms to ensure good communication, linkages and compatible approaches.
Strategic partners identified for this include multi-laterals such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), bi-lateral organisations such as GiZ, and NGOs like the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the Travel Foundation and International Tourism Partnership, and also networks such as the Sustainable Tourism Certification Alliance Africa.
Collectively, the African and international certification programs have certified at least 715 accommodation facilities in 19 African countries, against their environmental, social and economic criteria.
Though the total actual number of hotels in Africa is not known, Booking.com lists 20,844 hotels in 51 of Africa’s 52 countries. It therefore implies that the number of hotels that are monitoring their waste and water consumption, and taking efforts to improve their practices, are a tiny proportion of the number of accommodation facilities on the continent.
