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Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
President, AfDB

“Everybody’s worrying about the existence of the world itself because it’s heating up too much. And therefore one has to really wonder about which part of the world is suffering the most from that heating up of the world. Well, it goes without saying that the part of the world suffering the most is Africa. If you look at the world’s vulnerability index, it actually shows that nine out of the ten most vulnerable countries in the world are in Africa.”

“And you can see the consequence of that. We have droughts, we have floats, we have cyclones. We are losing infrastructure, we’re losing agricultural product. We’re losing buildings. You know, countries are running into debt for things that they didn’t cause.”

Africa is one of the most vulnerable places on earth to climate change, yet it accounts for just 3% of global emissions. It is a glaring injustice deeply felt across this resource rich continent that is losing between seven and $15 billion every year to the widespread impact of global warming.

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
President, AfDB

“The global climate financial architecture dedicated to climate finance is failing Africa woefully because Africa’s climate adaptation needs are so massive. Today, Africa gets $11 billion out of the total finance that it needs for adaptation per year, but it needs about ten times that.”

The effects of changing climate here are vast, forcing not only displacement and forced migration, but also increasing the potential threat of conflict over dwindling resources. In the heartland of Africa, where agriculture sustains hundreds of millions, changing rainfall patterns and prolonged droughts are threatening future food production and security. Along the coastal regions that are expected to see the highest rates of population growth and urbanization in the world, rising sea levels and intense storms are reducing usable land, causing widespread flooding and contaminating clean water supplies. At the same time, Africa’s iconic wildlife are confronting habitat degradation, dwindling food resources, increasing human intervention and mounting water scarcity.

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
President, AfDB

“Africa’s challenges are so massive. It requires what I call the Boabab approach. You know, you go to Africa, you know, we all have this baobab trees, these giant trees. And if you try to hug a baobab tree by yourself, you can’t. But if you have hands in the community around the baobabtree, everybody’s hand to go around the baobab tree.”

“And so it’s very important strategic partnerships and alliances are important. You know, to be able to solve big transformative issues. And that’s how we are doing it.”

With the cost of mitigation and adaptation for the region estimated at $600 billion by 2030, the African Development Bank is supporting a range of adaptation initiatives across the continent. The Africa Climate Risk Insurance Facility for Adaptation will raise an initial $1 billion of concessionary high risk capital and grants, spurring new private capital investments to catalyze the development and uptake of innovative insurance solutions.

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
President, AfDB

“The thing you have to do is just focus on the problem, continue to look for creative and innovative solutions to solve problems, but never be deterred by the size of the problem. And that is why I am a big supporter of the calls for reforms of the global financial architecture because the global financial architecture, I mean, the truth be told, is failing. It’s not appropriate for the challenges we are facing today.”

Global support is being provided for the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program, a joint initiative between the African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation, which aims tomobilize 25 billion US dollars to accelerate and scale climate adaptation over the next five years. The initiative was created to scale up access to climate smart digital technologies and data driven agricultural services in order to support food security and increase productivity, to speed up technological innovation and nature-based solutions for urban and rural infrastructure, and to develop the skills of one-million young people in Africa.

It also addresses the pressing need to close the finance gap, crucial to putting Africa on the path to a sustainable future. Yet, Africa is not without hope. Growing international support underlines the recognition that Africa’s sustainable future is fundamental to realizing our net zero ambitions and a better tomorrow for all.

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina
President, AfDB

“I have faith in Africa. I have faith in Africa’s youth. I have faith that our future will be a much better future. But we’ve got to work on many things. We have to make sure we invest in infrastructure. We have to make sure that we can feed ourself. We’ve got to make sure that we have electricity. We have to make sure that we can have our regional markets working for us.”

“We have to make sure that we are deploying that capital to unleash the entrepreneurship capacity of our youth. We have to make sure that we are doing all this by mobilizing everybody around us. It comes back to the baobab thing. Never walk alone.”