Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt, UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and Chair of GFANZ Africa Advisory Board, confirmed the necessity of GFANZ to enhance the efforts of African countries to reduce carbon emissions by focusing on clean energy projects.
This came while leading the GFANZ Africa Network Meeting, with the attendance of Vera Songwe, Co-Chair of the High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, Lesley Ndlovu, CEO of African Risk Capacity, Hendrik du Toit, CEO of Ninety-One, Samaila Zubairu, CEO of Africa Finance Corporation, and Solomon Quaynor, Vice President of African Development Bank for Private Sector, Infrastructure & Industrialisation.
Mohieldin said that the meeting discussed climate action priorities in Africa, which will be emphasized during the Africa Climate Summit to be held in Kenya in the first week of September as well as Africa Climate Week, in forefront of which is enhancing efforts at the state level through country platforms where Board members can help GFANZ to convene supporting working groups with a specific focus on the development and financing of clean energy projects, provide input on the required enabling environment, and actively build mechanisms to support JET-Ps.
He added that among the priorities for action agreed upon by the meeting participants were supporting climate projects resulting from the African Regional Forum and contributing to the preparation and development of these projects, as well as building capacity to provide the required climate finance, promoting voluntary carbon market and supporting the African Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), and encouraging cooperation between the private sector and MDBs to finance and implement climate action.
During the meeting, GFANZ Secretariat presented the new Director of the GFANZ Africa Group seconded by the African Development Bank Timothy Afful-Koomson, who is leading the work to find new effective de-risking instruments that are integrating with the current instrument in order to meet the requirements of various financing institutions.
Kavita Sinha, Director of the Division of Private Sector Facility at Green Climate Fund (GCF), was also invited as an observer to the meeting to briefly showcase the fund's presence and enabling role in Africa through a host of partnerships and projects as well as the potential of future collaborations, especially with private sector players.
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