World Bank Group Unveils A New To Help African People

The World Bank Group today unveiled a new plan that calls for $16 billion in funding to help African people and countries adapt to climate change and build up the continent’s resilience to climate shocks.

Jamal Saghir, Senior Regional Adviser, Africa Region of the World Bank said today (24 Nov) in Washington, DC, “This plan is ambitious. This plan will have to reverse the way we do business. So far, around 3 billion dollars of investment are done for adaptation to climate change in Africa. We believe we have to go to an investment program of around 16 billion dollars for the next few years, to be able to address this issue more seriously.”

Makhtar Diop, Vice President, Africa Region, also of the World Bank pointed out, “Specifically in Africa, we try to do three things. We try to strengthen resilience, to power resilience and to enable resilience. And we mean by that, that it will be an opportunity to move to a growth path which is based on smart agriculture, on climate resilient landscape, on forest management, on coastal zone management and to support ocean economies. We try also to power resilience. As you all know, Africa is facing a huge shortage of electricity and energy. The program that we are trying to put forward is a program that will be supporting renewable energy, energy, solar power, geothermal and hydropower. And these are resources that Africa has in abundance.”

Titled Accelerating Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Development, the Africa Climate Business Plan will be presented at COP21, the global climate talks in Paris, on November 30. It lays out measures to boost the resilience of the continent’s assets – its people, land, water, and cities - as well as other moves including boosting renewable energy and strengthening early warning systems.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate shocks, and our research shows that could have far-ranging impact -- on everything from child stunting and malaria to food price increases and droughts,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “This plan identifies concrete steps that African governments can take to ensure that their countries will not lose hard-won gains in economic growth and poverty reduction, and they can offer some protection from climate change.”
Per current estimates, the plan says that the region requires $5-10 billion per year to adapt to global warming of 2°C.

The World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme estimate that the cost of managing climate resilience will continue to rise to $20-50 billion by mid-century, and closer to $100 billion in the event of a 4°C warming.

Of the $16.1 billion that the ambitious plan proposes for fast-tracking climate adaptation, some $5.7 billion is expected from the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank Group that supports the poorest countries. About $2.2 billion is expected from various climate finance instruments, $2.0 billion from others in the development community, $3.5 billion from the private sector, and $0.7 billion from domestic sources, with an additional $2.0 billion needed to deliver on the plan.

“The Africa Climate Business Plan spells out a clear path to invest in the continent’s urgent climate needs and to fast-track the required climate finance to ensure millions of people are protected from sliding into extreme poverty,” explains Makhtar Diop, World Bank Group Vice President for Africa. “While adapting to climate change and mobilizing the necessary resources remain an enormous challenge, the plan represents a critical opportunity to support a priority set of climate-resilient initiatives in Africa.”

The plan will boost the region’s ability to adapt to a changing climate while reducing greenhouse emissions, focusing on a number of concrete actions. It identifies a dozen priority areas for action that will enhance Africa’s capacity to adapt to the adverse consequences of climate variation and change.

The first area for action aims to boost the resilience of the continent's assets. These comprise natural capital (landscapes, forests, agricultural land, inland water bodies, oceans); physical capital (cities, transport infrastructure, physical assets in coastal areas); and human and social capital (where efforts should include improving social protection for the people most vulnerable to climate shocks, and addressing climate-related drivers of migration).

The second area for action focuses on powering resilience, including opportunities for scaling up low-carbon energy sources. In addition to helping mitigate climate change, these activities offer considerable resilience benefits, as societies with inadequate access to energy are also more vulnerable to climate shocks.
And the third area for action will enable resilience by providing essential data, information and decision-making tools for climate-resilient development across sectors. This includes strengthening hydro-met systems at the regional and country levels, and building capacity to plan and design climate-resilient investments.

“The plan is a ‘win-win’ for all especially the people in Africa who have to adapt to climate change and work to mitigate its impacts,” said Jamal Saghir, the World Bank’s Senior Regional Adviser for Africa. “We look forward to working with African governments and development partners, including the private sector, to move this plan forward and deliver climate smart development.”

The Africa Climate Business Plan reflects contributions and inputs from a wide variety of partners with whom the Bank is already collaborating on the ground, in a coordinated effort to increase Africa’s resilience to climate variability and change. The plan aims to help raise awareness and accelerate resource mobilization for the region’s critical climate-resilience and low-carbon initiatives.

The plan warns that unless decisive action is taken, climate variability and change could seriously jeopardize the region’s hard-won development gains and its aspirations for further growth and poverty reduction. And it comes in the wake of Bank analysis which indicates climate change could push up to 43 million more Africans into poverty by 2030.

DESCRIPTION
STORY: WORLD BANK / AFRICA CLIMATE CHANGE

SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
DATELINE: 24 NOVEMBER 2015, WASHINGTON, DC / FILE
SHOTLIST
FILE/WASHINGTON, DC

1. Exterior, World Bank Headquarters
2. Exterior, World Bank Headquarters

24 NOVEMBER 2015, WASHINGTON, DC

3. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Jamal Saghir, Senior Regional Adviser, Africa Region, World Bank:
“This plan is ambitious. This plan will have to reverse the way we do business. So far, around 3 billion dollars of investment are done for adaptation to climate change in Africa. We believe we have to go to an investment program of around 16 billion dollars for the next few years, to be able to address this issue more seriously.”

27 NOVEMBER 2013, MANANTALI, MALI

4. Wide shot, power line
5. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Makhtar Diop, Vice President, Africa Region, World Bank:
“Specifically in Africa, we try to do three things. We try to strengthen resilience, to power resilience and to enable resilience. And we mean by that, that it will be an opportunity to move to a growth path which is based on smart agriculture, on climate resilient landscape, on forest management, on coastal zone management and to support ocean economies. We try also to power resilience. As you all know, Africa is facing a huge shortage of electricity and energy. The program that we are trying to put forward is a program that will be supporting renewable energy, energy, solar power, geothermal and hydropower. And these are resources that Africa has in abundance.”

05 NOVEMBER 2015, KINASSEROM, CHAD

6. Aerial shot, Lake Chad
7. Wide shot, farmer working the land
8. Close-up, farmer working the land
9. Wide shot, fishing boat on Lake Chad
10.Wide shot, man standing on a fishing boat on Lake Chad
11.Med shot, fishing boat in motion

10 NOVEMBER 2015, BAGUIDA, TOGA

12. Various shots of coastal erosion
13. Wide shot, national road that was washed into the sea

26 AUGUST 2015, YAMOUSSOUKRO, COTE d’IVOIRE

14. Wide shot, rice farmer
15. Close-up, rice farmer
16. Close-up, rice farmer
17. Med shot, rice fields

27 NOVEMBER 2013, MANANTALI, MALI

18. Various shots, power lines

DURATION: 02:40