Integration of climate change into country level work

Country strategies

The AfDB’s country level work is primarily governed by Country Strategy Papers (CSPs). Beyond this, there are also Regional Integration Strategy Papers (RISPs), which exist in the context of an overarching Regional Integration Strategic Framework (RISF). CSPs are uniquely tailored to member country development needs and priorities, while RISPs focus on overarching goals and regional integration. Together, these documents reflect a best practice approach to ensuring comprehensive and integrated strategic coverage across all of the geographies where the AfDB operates.

These documents make up one of three arms of the Bank’s overarching operational strategy (the other two arms being Corporate and Sector Papers).  Both CSPs and RISPs usually cover a five-year time horizon and aim to provide a structured action plan for the Bank’s activities in the country or region.  Both types of documents aim to align with the AfDB’s High 5s and address cross-cutting issues, including (but not limited to) climate change and resilience in transitional states.

As part of its first Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP1) in 2012, the Bank stated it had developed an internal “Guidance Document for Mainstreaming Climate Change in the Bank’s Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) and Regional Integration Strategy Papers (RISPs)”. This guidance document aims to ensure that these strategy papers are designed with climate resilience and sustainable investments in mind. The guidance document initially focused more on adaptation than mitigation, but has been updated since the Paris Agreement to include a greater focus on the latter.[1]  As of 2012, the guidance document had already been applied in 16 countries. Although no updated figures have been forthcoming since, it is implied in the CCAP1 that the AfDB continued the roll-out of this guidance across all CSPs and RISPs from 2012 onwards.   

The AfDB’s Climate Change and Green Growth Strategic Framework (Third Climate Change Action Plan: CCAP3) states that climate change and member countries’ NDCs and LTSs are being consistently mainstreamed in recent CSPs and RISPs. Moreover, within one of the “action clusters” for ensuring the implementation of the CCAP3, there is an explicit subaction to scale up grant funding and technical assistance for the purpose of strengthening NDCs, LTSs, and NAPs. This includes targeting a midterm (2023) increase of 5% (compared to 2020), and a 10% increase by the end of CCAP3 (2025).[2]

Relevantly, in the AfDB’s Ten-Year Strategy 2024–2033, the Bank states that “country platforms will be explored to promote greater country ownership of multiyear joint transformational programmes”. While concrete details of what this will entail in practice are not yet forthcoming, the AfDB commits to premise this work on alignment with the Paris Agreement, while also recognising “differentiated pathways to net-zero emissions”. 

The AfDB also commissioned the development of 25 Country Climate Change Profiles, which provide climate change data and information per country and region, in order to support implementation of country NDCs. The reports (published in 2019) include weather and climate risk profiles, GHG emissions and energy profiles, and national mitigation and adaptation priorities. Their development was led by the African Climate & Development Initiative, as input for the development of the AfDB’s CSPs (alongside being available for wider public and private use). These reports are a highly valuable resource and excellent complement to the Bank’s CSPs. There is no indication of plans to review and update the reports issued in 2019, or to extend coverage beyond the initial 25 countries.  

Africa NDC Hub

The Africa NDC Hub was established in 2017 to provide support for the implementation of NDCs in African countries and is managed by a secretariat hosted at the AfDB. The NDC Partnership is a collaborating partner.

The Hub engages with national and subnational state and non-state actors, as well as private sector representatives, to support the transformation of NDCs into bankable and implementable programmes. Moreover, the 2018–2020 Workplan and Programme of the Africa NDC Hub explicitly identified as a priority the development of a methodological framework for Africa NDC revision (from 2020 onwards), with the aim to increase ambition over time. This has since been published, and features broad, high-level guidelines and steps for countries to consider when enhancing NDC ambition. The Africa NDC Hub does not appear to have issued an updated Workplan and Programme since this initial document.

Recommendations: 

• The AfDB should uphold its best practice approach of developing dedicated “Country Climate Change Profiles”, through keeping these documents up to date and rolling out coverage across all countries of operation.
• The AfDB should seek to leverage its country level expertise (such as through the Country Climate Change Profiles analyses, and Country Strategy Papers) by ensuring it plays an active role in facilitating the deployment of regional country platforms.

[1] Information relating to the content of the guidance document was received directly from the AfDB. In principle, this document should ideally be made public to allow for full verification of its content and in the interest of sharing knowledge and good practice.

[2] Progress will be reported in the Climate Change and Green Growth annual report for 2023 once this becomes available.