African experts call for debt-free climate financing ahead of COP29

Josefa Correia Sacko, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy, and Sustainable Environment [ARBE] at the African Union Commission called on African states to prioritise financing for impactful projects and ensure that carbon markets work in favour of the continent.

“I urge all of us to speak with one collective voice as we prepare for COP 29,” she told the CCDA XII delegation in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, which was held alongside the 2024 African Ministerial Conference on the Environment [AMCEN].

“Our focus must be on mobilising climate finance at scale for Africa, with a clear emphasis on securing grants rather than loans or debt,” said Sacko.

Despite Africa contributing so little towards global greenhouse gas emissions, the continent is receiving money to support climate adaptation and mitigation projects through loans that African taxpayers will be forced and are already being forced to pay back with interests, and Kenya is not an exemption.

A project known as ‘Building Climate Resilience for Food and Livelihoods in the Horn of Africa’ [BREFOL] is an example of the latest project partly loaned to Kenya, Djibouti, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia in the name of ‘climate finance.’

On 18 July 2024, the Green Climate Fund [GCF] approved US$ 335 million for the Africa Development Bank [AfDB] to improve the adaptive capacity of communities in the Horn of Africa region at scale through the project.

However, US$ 60.3mln of the finance comes as a loan, which taxpayers will be forced to pay back with interest through the AfDB, should beneficiary countries express interest in partaking of the readily available loan.

Another project is known as the Africa Rural Climate Adaptation Finance Mechanism [ARCAFIM] for the East Africa region, which was approved last year in October and is being implemented by the International Funds for Agricultural Development [IFAD].

Out of the approved US$ 200mln for the climate adaptation project, US$ 45mln is a loan that will have to be paid back with interest by taxpayers from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, should the countries develop an appetite for the readily available climate finance loan.

On a larger scale, the World Bank is implementing a pure climate mitigation project known as ‘The Sustainable Renewables Risk Mitigation Initiative [SRMI] Facility to the tune of  US$ 1.6 billion.