COP27: Climate Investment Funds announces nine countries participating in first platform Nature, People and Climate | African Development Bank

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) will provide $350 million in financing and other support for nature-based solutions in nine countries under the Nature, People and Climate Investment platform.

The beneficiary countries are: the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Fiji, Kenya and the Zambezi River Basin Region, comprising Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania. They were announced at the Global Climate Summit (COP27) taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The Nature, People and Climate program deploys nature-based solutions that recognize links between land use, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the improvement of the livelihoods of rural communities and indigenous peoples.

It includes sustainable agriculture, food supply, forests, resilient coastal systems and efforts to empower indigenous peoples and local communities. As a next step, the participating countries will develop investment plans in collaboration with a number of partner multilateral development banks. The platform also works with multilateral development banks to reduce and scale investments at the system level rather than the project level.

The Fund’s CEO, Mafalda Duarte, said fifty-five developing countries have applied to participate in the program in recent months, underlining the urgent demand for climate finance.

“I express our gratitude to Italy, the United Kingdom and Sweden for the incredible collaboration. Congratulations to these countries. We can’t wait to get started and this is just the beginning. We will also support Ethiopia, Rwanda, Namibia and Brazil in the preparation of investment plans pending further contributions,” said Duarte.

In the opening speech, Italy’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Ambassador Alessandro Modiano, said: “Humanity faces a dual threat: climate change and biodiversity loss. The two are a serious consequence of human activity and economic progress at the expense of nature,” he said.

A panel discussion followed the announcement. The panellists included Egypt’s International Cooperation Minister Rania Al-Mashat; the Zambian Minister of Green Economy and Environment Collins Nzovu; the Dutch climate envoy Prince Jaime de Bourbon de Parme; and Beth Dunford, Vice President of Agriculture, Human and Social Development at the African Development Bank.

Dunford stressed the importance of supporting farmers in adopting nature-based solutions.

“For agriculture to flourish, we need healthy ecosystems that farmers can nurture. Providing this technology and information will also help them adapt and climate-resilience,” she said.

Minister Al-Mashat thanked Climate Investment Funds on behalf of her country. “We have a series of priority adaptation and mitigation projects. These funds will help us carry out these plans,” she said.

Minister Nzovu praised the efforts of organizations and partner countries to work together to help African countries in need of climate finance.

“Africa must adopt nature-based solutions so that we can provide our own food and water and be self-sufficient as a continent,” he said. “There is a need for awareness for not only politicians, but also citizens to understand why their countries send money to other countries.”

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), annual investment in nature by G20 countries alone needs to increase by a further $165 billion a year, a 140 percent increase over current levels, to meet biodiversity, land restoration and land restoration goals. and climate by 2050.