AfDB says ClimDev-Africa Special Fund Ready to Support First Climate Change Operations

By Aloysius Fomenky

The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced on October 8 that the ClimDev-Africa Special Fund (CDSF) had become effective since last August and is now ready to support the first cohort of climate change operations. Addressing the opening session of the Fourth Annual Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IV) in Marrakech, Morocco, Ms. Yacine Fal, AfDB Resident Representative to the Kingdom of Morocco announced the launch of the first ‘Call for Proposal’ at an event to be held here later that day.

Ms. Fal cautioned that the Fund would only finance innovative operations, given its initial envelop of 33 million Euros that it has been able to mobilize so far.  She thanked the European Union for providing seed money of 20 million Euros for 5 initial operations that would, among other things enhance the capacities of national meteorological and hydrological services to receive numerical weather prediction models in order to raise relevant warnings to their disaster risk management agencies for extreme weather events. She praised the organization of CCDA events of which AfDB is one of the key partners, saying they have now become an annual fixture in our respective calendars because the « forum brings together the best minds and actors on the climate change agenda in Africa».

 She commended the choice of this year’s conference theme as being both comprehensive and timely « as we mark the 2014 Year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa », recalling that AfDB had just commemorated the Africa Year of Agriculture and Food Security on the theme « Transforming Africa’s Agriculture for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development ». 

The Resident Representative underscored the importance that AfDB attaches to climate change because as the lead development institution in Africa, it considers the phenomenon as something that must be dealt with because of the threat its impacts pose to development endeavors on the continent. « Let us remind ourselves that over 2,500 extreme weather and climate-related disasters were recorded in Africa in 2012 » alone, « resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and tremendous economic damage costing tens of billions of dollars », she explained.