Standalone climate strategy and integration of climate in overarching strategy

Explanation

Overarching strategy

The African Development Bank’s Strategy for 2013–2022 mentions green growth, including resilience to climate change, among its main objectives. However, the strategy does not provide further details on how AfDB intends to contribute to mitigation and could be more explicit on the institutional reforms necessary to mainstream climate action in the Bank. While pre-dating the Paris Agreement, the Bank’s strategy does not include commitments to tackle climate change that could be considered aligned with the state-of-play of climate action at the time.

Building on the strategy, AfDB developed the High Five Agenda, covering five priority areas: Light up & power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa and Improve the quality of life for the African people.  The goals are linked to the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. While the goals provide detailed targets to achieve, AfDB has stopped short on mainstreaming these with the Paris Agreement (for example, it targets an additional 162 GW of electricity generation, but does not provide a target of how many percent should come from renewable energy). Nonetheless, climate is considered across all goals.

The framework for the implementation of the climate change action plan (CCAP2) is built on the Bank’s High 5 Agenda (H5) and it incorporates the Paris Agreement, the 2030 development agenda, the Bank’s Green Growth Framework and the lessons learned in the implementation of the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP1, 2011-2015).

Standalone climate strategy

In its second Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP2), over 2016-2020, the strategic vision is to enable the achievement of “low-carbon and climate-resilient” development in Africa. It has four pillars: Mitigation, Adaptation, Climate Finance and a Cross Cutting Pillar, which covers technology transfer, capacity development and institutional reforms to create the enabling environment for successful implementation. These pillars have been inspired by the Paris Agreement. In a matching process, AfDB has aligned the High 5 Goals with the CCAP2 and thus also with the Paris Agreement. On adaptation, it recognizes the low participation of the private sector and proposes to address this under different initiatives to scale up climate finance, and by integrating adaptation in the design of the projects. On mitigation it recognizes the need to decouple economic growth from emissions and that technology transfer is going to play a key role.

The CCAP2 would gain additional credibility from targets that are as precise as the High Five Agenda targets. While being strongly influenced by the Paris Agreement in its concept, the CCAP2 could be more explicit on how it aligns in concrete terms.

The Bank hast started the process of drafting a new policy and strategic framework on climate change and green growth, with two key documents: i) A standalone long-term policy; and ii) A Strategy/Action Plan for the period 2021-2030.

Recommendation: For Paris aligned, include do-no-harm principle in both overarching and climate strategy. Overarching strategy to comprehensively integrate climate change throughout AfDBs operations. Set a goal for Paris alignment by 2025.