Between 2013 and 2019, West African and Sahelian countries have received only 7% of their nature and climate finance needs. This situation was lamented at the workshop on nature and climate finance strategies in the WAEMU space, April 3-6, 2023 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
International funding for climate policies in the West African sub-region is still largely insufficient. Between 2013 and 2019, West African and Sahelian countries received a total of $11.7 million in international funding, or 7% of the funding needs declared in the NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) benchmarks of these countries.
It is in this context that the workshop on financing strategies for nature and climate in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) was held from April 3 to 6, 2023 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Organized by WAEMU and the West African Development Bank (WADB), the workshop aimed to find ways and means of maximizing the mobilization of funding for NDCs in member countries. It was also about increasing the coherence of interventions by sub-regional organizations so that they can best support WAEMU member states.
“It is time, given the importance of the issues at stake, that there is an increased mobilization of States, but also of regional organizations so that together, we can achieve a structural transformation of West African economies based on the recognition of the preservation of natural ecosystems,” said Kako Kossivi Nubukpo, the WAEMU Commissioner in charge of Agriculture, Water Resources and Environment.
For her part, Valérie Noëlle Kodjo Diop, Director of Innovation and Sustainable Development at the BOAD, said that her institution is committed to supporting solutions to halt the loss of biodiversity, restore ecosystems and species, and drive systemic change throughout the supply chain and beyond.
Africa facing more extreme climate events
According to Climate Funds (November 2020), international finance mobilization to developing countries reached nearly $80 billion in 2018, with only 25% of the funds allocated to Africa, the continent most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Read also-AFRICA: The IPCC recommends 4 to 8 times more climate finance than the current rate
In its sixth report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights a key finding for Africa: the continent is already experiencing more extreme heat events, more drought, but also more extreme precipitation events than in the recent past. These phenomena, along with rising sea levels and the consequent increased risk of flooding of coastal areas, will inexorably increase in the coming decades, even if the world’s largest CO2-emitting countries manage to considerably reduce their own emissions.
Boris Ngounou
