Politics Briefing
Green Growth Needs Liquidity
Closing Africa's Climate Finance Gap
Politics Briefing: Green Growth Needs Liquidity
February 9, 2023
German Bundestag, Berlin
With Vera Songwe
While Africa has historically contributed less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the continent is the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. At the same time, the international community is starting to recognize Africa as a source and role model of green energy generation and an important guardian of biodiversity, asking countries to foster green growth and preserve natural habitats.
Global climate change adaptation towards a low-carbon economy requires extensive financial resources ($4–6 tn per year according to the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan), which affected countries cannot leverage on their own. In addition to existing adaptation and mitigation commitments, COP27 ended with a historic pledge by heavy emitters to set up a loss and damage fund for vulnerable nations.
Economist Dr. Vera Songwe talks about how to unlock financial pledges and leverage climate finance for vulnerable nations
Dr. Karamba Diaby, Dr. Vera Songwe, and Dr. Ingrid Hamm at Politics Briefing „Green Growth Needs Liquidity”
Sustainable and effective climate finance draws from a multitude of financial instruments and incentives: reforming the international financial architecture and issuance of Special Drawing Rights, changing the narrative of Africa as an attractive investment destination, increasing the scale and scope of public guarantees, and enabling liquidity and affordable borrowing through concessional loans, credit ratings, grants, and access to Eurobonds and repo markets.
Central to the debates on climate finance at COP27 and beyond is a report by the Independent High-Level Expert Group, co-chaired by Dr. Vera Songwe, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and current Chair of the Liquidity & Sustainability Facility (LSF). A renowned authority and leader in the field, Dr Songwe will give an input and recommendations on how to unlock financial pledges and leverage climate finance for vulnerable nations.
Contact Persons
Rhoda Berger, r.berger@globalperspectives.org
Sabrina Rupprecht, s.rupprecht@globalperspectives.org
Politics Briefing
Politics Briefing foster professional dialogue with policymakers. This format is aimed particularly at members of the Bundestag, but also at political actors in government, ministries or political foundations.
Program Archive
Together with experts from politics, academia and civil society, we discussed the need to reform the global financial architecture.
Africa is experiencing an AI boom, but challenges persist. In our webinar, we explore the transformative potential of digital sovereignty together with AI experts.
Fostering mobility is considered one of the most important solutions to the skills gap on the African continent. We discuss this at the follow-up to the fifth edition of The Africa Roundtable.
Strategies for education, skill building and the labor market of tomorrow. The action recommendations of the fifth conference.
In this episode we are joined by Taha Bawa, Co-founder and CEO of Goodwall, a social enterprise which connects youth to opportunities for skilling, working and social impact.
The research paper on education and training in Africa was issued on the occasion of The Africa Roundtable “The Path to Success: Education, Skills, and Leadership” 2023 in Berlin.
What will sustainable economic cooperation between Europe and Africa look like in the future? We discussed this with stakeholders from the private sector and tomorrow's leaders.
The fifth edition of The Africa Roundtable focussed on employability, skills and training and examine the possibilities of equal education and training for Africa's youth.
With a new space agency and an upcoming space port on the continent, the African space industry is capturing global attention. What does this mean for European-African cooperation?