- The commitment effectively doubles its previous commitment to climate-related projects over the last five years.
- The funding is part of the bank’s 2025 Targets to Step Up Climate Action, launched in December 2018 during the UN’s COP24 in Poland.
During the One Planet Summit underway in Kenya, the World Bank Group made several announcements to scale up support for both climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa.
With continued strong support for their Industrial Development Association (IDA), a funding model for the world’s poorest countries, the Group will provide US 22.5 billion for Africa for climate adaptation and mitigation for five years from 2021-2025.
The bank noted that this commitment more than doubles its commitment to climate-related projects over the last five years. The funding is part of the bank’s 2025 Targets to Step Up Climate Action, launched in December 2018 during the UN’s COP24 in Poland.
It will help African countries manage the risks of a changing climate while unlocking new investment opportunities.
“People across Africa are already experiencing the growing impacts of climate change. This region is particularly vulnerable to increasing floods, droughts and destructive storms,” said Interim President of the World Bank Group, Kristalina Georgieva.
IFC and MIGA, the Group’s private sector arms, will also continue to ambitiously grow their climate activities in the African continent.
In addition, the World Bank, will carry out intensive Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) engagements with Rwanda and Kenya, under the framework of the NDC Partnership, and with generous support from Germany’s BMZ.
The engagements will help accelerate the implementation of, and raise the level of ambition for, their NDCs by supporting systematic mainstreaming and institutionalisation of climate adaptation and mitigation across and within key development sectors and governance levels.
The World Bank – as trustee of the Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev) trust fund – and Kenya Tea Development Agency Power Company Ltd. (KTDA Power) signed an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA).
The contract purchases carbon credits from small hydropower plants, providing power to 350,000 smallholder tea farmers and 39 of their regional tea factories in Kenya.
The new ERPA brings the Ci-Dev portfolio to more than $73 million in implementation.
Author: GBA News Desk/ESI-Africa Contributor
This article was originally published on ESI Africa and is republished with permission with minor editorial changes.
