Financing from the government, private sector and development partners is an imperative to climate change mitigation, delegates at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMES) workshop in Harare were told.
The Workshop is a follow-up to another one that focused on issues related to climate change that was meant to facilitate knowledge generation on how governments can better fund their Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and beyond.
“This makes this workshop equally important as it aims to proffer solutions to the key question among developing countries of how are we going to implement the commitments under the Paris Agreement,” Guest of Honour at the workshop, Hon. Chief Air MarshalI Perrance Shiri (Rtd), Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement said.
The challenges countries are facing are broad with financing remaining as one of the issues that needs to be strategised on for countries to meet their Paris Agreements targets.
“We are aware that, across Africa, all Governments through the National Designated Authorities are seized with finding ways to enhance capacity to deal with the climate change phenomenon…You will agree with me that financing is the main enabler of effective climate change response – the very reason why this meeting is happening,” UNDP Country Office Deputy Resident Representative Debab Asrat Ynessu said.
Minister Shiri said the current impacts of climate change require urgent adaptation and mitigation interventions and financing of these requisite actions remain a challenge. Parties under the Paris Agreement have an obligation to fulfil their NDC commitments which most of them were conditional on the means of implementation such as the financing, technology development and transfer and the necessary training.
“Climate change is undoubtedly one of the defining issues of this century. It represents one of the greatest challenges to our livelihood, security and well-being especially in developing countries like the entire African continent,” Hon Shiri said.
Key challenges in the region included competitiveness, global challenges, institutional weaknesses, unavailability of statistics and policy challenges among other issues.
Policy reforms, partnerships, private financing were viewed as key enablers to fully realise the environmental protection warrantied by the Paris Agreement.
“Indeed, policy reforms, technology transfer, capacity development, skills enhancement and mobilising finance are the key enablers for a successful response,” Ynessu added
The African Union Commission, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the European Union and the Global Green Growth Institute have been involved in a number of initiatives to strategise on financing models for climate change.