New AfDB president must champion quality adaptation finance

BY SAADA SALA MOHAMED  

A full plate awaits Sidi Ould Tah, the incoming president of the African Development Bank (AfDB).  

The Mauritanian’s election by the AfDB’s board of directors in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in May offers hope and an opportunity for the continent to realise a resilient future.  

Africa’s Adaptation future looks bleak. Without urgent adaptation interventions, African countries are projected to incur losses of up to 3.8% of their GDP annually by 2100, even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C.   

For a continent already grappling with worsening fiscal balances and a skyrocketing debt crisis, this is detrimental.

The adaptation finance burden in Africa has steadily risen and is estimated to hit $50 billion annually by 2050.  

But even against this background, African countries receive only about 3% of global climate finance against the $277 billion they require annually to meet climate commitments in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2030.   

Alongside the vast adaptation finance gap is the enormous financing gap of $200 billion annually to attain the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.  

This is gravely concerning.

All is not lost, though.

AfDB’s climate leadership, commitment to Paris Alignment  

Over the last decade, the African Development Bank has demonstrated strong climate leadership, particularly in addressing Africa’s adaptation priorities, by integrating and mainstreaming climate impacts into its core strategy and project designs.  

By using the Paris Alignment as a guiding framework, the AfDB’s operations and institutional structure have a strong focus on climate.  

The Bank’s ‘‘Climate Change and Green Growth Strategic Framework’’, including its Action Plan for 2021-2025, outlines key financial commitments for climate action and investments that underpin the institution’s development mandate.   

These include an aggregate climate finance mobilisation target of $25 billion and ensuring that at least 40% of its overall annual finance is directed to climate action.  

It also includes mobilising US$5.3 billion from the private sector for both adaptation and mitigation projects.   

The AfDB allocated 41% and 45% of its overall investment as climate finance in 2021 and 2022, respectively, surpassing its target.   

There is even more reason to be optimistic.   

The AfDB recently adopted a 10-year strategy until 2033, which will build upon its existing climate commitments. The strategy prioritises climate change action and finance.   

Prioritising adaptation finance  

For Africa, adaptation is not just an environmental necessity. It is a fundamental lifeline. It’s a necessity to facilitate inclusive growth and a climate-resilient development trajectory aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063.   

Under its 2021-2025 Action Plan, the Bank has pledged to allocate at least 50% of its annual climate finance to adaptation interventions in climate-sensitive sectors, bringing it on par with its allocation to mitigation finance.  

Looking ahead: urgent need to safeguard and advance adaptation finance gains  

This year marks a critical juncture for the AfDB with the election of a new president and an ambitious $25 billion target for the African Development Fund’s (ADF) 17th replenishment.  

Replenishing the fund will significantly shape the future of the bank’s developmental mandate in Africa in the coming critical decade.   

These developments coincide with an increasingly complex and fragmented geopolitical landscape, marked by tariff wars and significant reductions in development aid. These further strain climate financing and threaten international cooperation.   

This is a wake-up call for Africa to strengthen its financial independence.  

Greater self-reliance is essential for the continent to meet both its development and climate needs. Thankfully, the 2025 AfDB’s AGM theme, “Making Africa's Capital Work Better for Africa's Development,” echoes this financial independence.    

ADF remains a key vehicle for expanding concessional and innovative financing mechanisms to drive impactful climate-resilient investments in Africa’s poorest countries.  

Why Sidi Tah must be agile 

Garnering support for the ambitious ADF 17th replenishment should, therefore, be an immediate priority for the incoming AfDB president.   

Sidi Tah’s new leadership must be agile. It must also urgently address structural challenges to enhance its operational and lending capacity over the next decade, as outlined in the 2024-2033 strategy.   

Finance should match Africa’s growth needs 

With its African-wide governance network, developmental mandate, technical expertise and convening power, the AfDB has the strategic leverage it needs to accelerate the mobilisation of development and climate finance at scale.  

This must be done with the speed commensurate with Africa’s growing needs.   

President-elect Tah must go further, raising climate finance ambitions to protect hard-won adaptation gains and supporting Africa’s call for the adoption of a needs-based adaptation finance goal under the New Climate Finance Goal (NCQG) and the Baku to Belém Roadmap to $ 1.3 trillion.   

This should ensure a 50-50 balance between adaptation and mitigation, with finance delivered annually in grants and grant-equivalent terms.  

It must also include a clear and actionable commitment that enables effective implementation of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience.  

More importantly, the new goal should be needs-based.  

To be truly transformative, the new AfDB president must pick up the baton and continue to amplify Africa’s influence globally, starting with reforms to international financial and debt architecture.  

Reforms must safeguard Africa’s debt sustainability 

Working with other MDBs, the African lender can push for the speedy implementation of the G20’s “Better, Bolder, Bigger’’ roadmap on reforms and the AU’s recent Lomé Declaration on Debt, which seeks to review the current G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, and calls for a legally binding UN framework convention on sovereign debt.  

These reforms are crucial for resolving the current debt challenges and unlocking new financing while safeguarding debt sustainability in Africa.    

If President Tah could make Africa’s capital work for Africa’s development, he would have succeeded.  

Saada Sala Mohamed is a climate finance associate at Power Shift Africa