African Ministers hail ClimDev Special Fund, say it’s useful and timely

By Aloysius Fomenky

Ministers from Benin, Guinea Bissau and Senegal, yesterday took turns on the podium at a dinner gala to welcome the official launch of the ClimDev Special Fund (CDSF), saying it is a useful and timely initiative because it will effectively help African countries to invest in the production and use of climate information for sustainable and transformative economic development and better livelihoods in Africa.

The launch ceremony was organized by the African Development Bank (AfDB) in collaboration with the ClimDev-Africa Secretariat on the first day of the Fourth annual Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IV) underway in Marrakech, Morocco.

Mr. Ken Johm, Coordinator for Special Initiatives in the Agriculture and Agro-industry Department at the African Development Bank (AfDB) received applause when he stood up to announce the official launch of the Fund.

African ministers present at the event, H.E. Abdoulaye Balde, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Senegal, H.E. Raphael Edou, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Benin, and H.E. Barros Bacar Banjal, Minister of Environment and Tourism of Guinea Bissau, all stood to praise the Fund’s launch.

Mr Johm went on to say that the Fund was now receiving applications for grants of between euros 200,000 and 400,000 under conditions specified in the Fund’s main brochure distributed at the ceremony and available on the ClimDev-Africa website (www.climdev-africa.org). The Fund is hosted by the African Development Bank.

Ms Fatima Denton, Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) and Director of Special Initiatives Division at ECA, took the floor to welcome the ‘good  news’, saying it’s a good day for researchers, institutions and governments who had pinned their hope on CDSF ever since the project was initiated three years ago.

For Ms Denton, the initiative could not have been more timely because its launch comes at a time when Africa is getting seriously frustrated with climate finance “promises that have remained pledges and hollow words for our vulnerable communities of farmers, fishers, pastoralists”.

The Ambassador of Uganda to the Kingdom of Morocco, Mr. Moses Kiwe Sebunya, who is an outspoken advocate for a Common African Position in the upcoming climate talks in Lima, Peru, stood to praise the initiators and contributors to the Fund. He urged African countries to support it with concrete action.

The CDSF is a demand-led Fund that pools resources to finance investment activities on the ground across Africa for the generation and use of climate information for climate-resilient development. Grants are provided to projects in line with the ClimDev-Africa Programme’s goal, purpose and results areas and are implemented by national and regional organisations at all levels on the continent.

The financial management and administration of the CDSF along with roles and responsibilities, and the criteria for funding activities through the ClimDev Special Fund are defined the ClimDev Special Fund Operational Procedures Manual (OPM) agreed to by the CDSC on November 29, 2011.

Speaking about the launch of the Fund earlier in the day, Ms Yacine Fal, Resident Representative of the Bank to the Kingdom of Morocco thanked the European Union for providing seed money of 20 million euros for 5 initial operations that would, among others, 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.

The African Development Bank along with other partners in the ClimDev-Africa Programme consider climate change to be a serious threat to Africa and are engaged at the highest levels of their respective institutions in tackling it. African Development Bank’s Vice President, Mr. Aly Abou Sabaa, is on record for saying that climate change threatens to undermine all the development and progress that Africa has made so far, including in the area of poverty reduction and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.