Aiming for a formal launch at COP27 in Egypt, the AGFC Steering Committee is calling on African governments to endorse and join AGFC to design future-proof climate finance policies, incentives, institutions and investment portfolios. Developed countries have failed to provide the committed $100 billion a year in climate finance and the international climate finance architecture is not yet rising to the challenge of private finance mobilisation. African governments are largely left behind in benefitting from finance initiatives launched at international and multilateral fora, including at COP26. The high (perceived) risks from domestic and international investors, and the resulting high cost of capital offered for green investments, result in low volumes of private climate finance in Africa. Despite Africa’s acute climate vulnerability, just $19 billion (i.e., 3%) of the total $580 billion global climate finance finds its way to the continent. This stresses the need for strategic collaborations between African Ministries to strengthen green finance institutions, improve the enabling environment, design cross-country investment portfolios, and maximise efficiencies and economies of scale in securing climate finance for adaptation, mitigation and nature.

Context

African leaders are committed to deeply transforming the way institutional, policy, regulatory and fiscal design is done from replicating international examples to curating home-grown innovative regulations and policies. In this journey they face inter-connected challenges, including:

• The high and ever-growing cost of climate change to African economies, communities, and nature.
• The disparity between critical-sector investment needs and existing investment levels.
• The priority for African governments to act on international public and private climate investment flows.

In support of African Governments’ leadership in addressing those challenges, the AGFC platform bolsters partnerships. Members will collaborate to harness the opportunities linked to achieving the Paris agreement, other SDGs and AU Agenda 2063 for Africa’s greater and greener future, AGFC. The AGFC accelerates the strengthening of institutional capacity needed for African economies to secure large investments in low-carbon, climate-resilient and just transitions in strategic sectors such as energy, transport, logistics, agriculture, forestry, housing, waste, low-carbon mining and manufacturing.