Accelerating climate-resilient and low-carbon development: progress report on the implementation of the Africa climate business plan
This report provides an overview of the progress made in 2016 in implementing the Africa Climate Business Plan (ACBP), a blueprint for climate action in Africa that the World Bank launched during the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in November 2015. The ACBP aims to contribute to filling the climate financing gap in the region. Including the transport component added after the Paris launch, the plan’s goal is to raise US$19.3 billion by 2020, for investments that will strengthen, power, and enable resilience in the region. The plan focuses on more than a dozen priority areas, clustered in three groups, where the World Bank expects to help achieve results in the near future. The first cluster of the plan (‘strengthening resilience’) includes selected initiatives aimed at boosting the resilience of the continent’s assets, including its natural capital (landscapes, forests, agricultural land, inland bodies of water, and oceans), physical capital (roads, cities, and physical assets in coastal areas), as well as human and social capital. The second cluster (‘powering resilience’) relates to opportunities for scaling up low-carbon energy sources in Africa, thereby contributing at the same time to improving access to energy (a key ingredient for resilience) and mitigating climate change. The third cluster (‘enabling resilience’) provides data, information, and decision-making tools for promoting climate-resilient development across sectors, by strengthening the region’s hydro-meteorological systems at the regional and country levels and building the capacity to plan and design climate-resilient investments.