AFAC Unveils New Strategic Vision to Catalyze Private Finance for Climate Action Across Africa | African Development Bank

The African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC) unveiled a new vision for 2030 at the Global Climate Summit (COP27), prioritizing mobilizing capital and tools to meet the Paris Agreement target.

AFAC, a pan-African alliance of Africa’s leading financial institutions and commercial and development banks, is mobilizing private capital to support low-carbon and climate-resilient development across the continent.

The new blueprint focused on aligning financial flows to achieving greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development by 2030. It suggested improvements in areas such as leadership awareness, access to data, climate risk regulation, climate risk management and green finance.

The launch attracted representatives from the African Development Bank, the Global Center on Adaptation, financial institutions and country representatives. AFAC asked for stakeholder feedback on a new strategy.

“The proposed changes must be implemented quickly and sent back for approval. We need speed to act. We don’t have time,” said Dr. Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, member of the IFRS Sustainability Board. IFRS is a non-profit public interest organization that works to develop high quality, enforceable and globally accepted standards for accounting and sustainability statements

The strategy also identified three critical challenges to be overcome: a lack of available data to assess financial risks, insufficient internal capacity at national central banks to create a level playing field for the private and public sectors, and the need to with international standards and practices.

Kevin Kariuki, Vice President of Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth at the African Development Bank, noted that climate finance is largely focused on the public sector. “There are plenty of calls to mobilize these finances through the private sector. AFAC is a channel that can mobilize private sector climate finance once these changes are finalized,” he added.

COP27, commonly referred to as the African COP, ran from November 6 to 18, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

About African Financial Alliance on Climate Change

The African Financial Alliance for Climate Change aims to put the financial sector at the center of climate action in Africa. It brings together Africa’s major financial institutions, including central banks, insurance companies, sovereign wealth and pension funds, stock exchanges, as well as commercial and development banks, to mobilize private capital flows for low-carbon and climate-resilient development across the continent.

AFAC will promote climate action through knowledge sharing, financial tools for climate risk mitigation, climate risk disclosure and climate finance flows.