Newsletter

Impact of climate action & adaptation solutions in addressing the triple crisis of food & livelihood security: Lessons from Africa

The three target countries – Cameroon, Nigeria, and Uganda – have put forth policy positions targeted at driving the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ideals, including through enhancing environmental action, food security, and socioeconomic transformation. Environmentally, all three countries have ratified their commitments to climate action, popularly called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and have also submitted updated NDC commitments. As an example, in Nigeria, its updated NDCs prioritise cutting methane by up to 61% by 2030 while cutting crop residues being burnt by up to 50%. Uganda on its part has committed to reverse deforestation, increase use of sustainable cooking energy by 25 - 40%, as well as clean cook stoves. Cameroon, on its part, has committed to substituting unclean biomass with biogas by increasing biodigester investments by 5 – 10%. Furthermore, 2 of these countries – Cameroon and Nigeria – have committed to the methane pledge to cut methane emissions. In addition, these countries have put in place, various national climate change legislations to operationalise these commitments. Uganda has the National Climate Change Act of 2021. Nigeria has the Climate Change Act, which also mandates the country to put in place national climate change action plans every 5 years and a carbon budget to operationalise its commitments. Cameroon, on its part, has key sectorial policies to operationalise the NDCs – including the forest code, as well as policies, including the National Adaptation Plan to Climate Change and the National Development Strategy 2020-2030 (NDS30) among key ones The countries also have elaborate agriculture and other socioeconomic policies that prioritise not only enhanced food security but also value addition, reversing postharvest losses (PHLs), and climate-proofing agriculture. Uganda has a National Agriculture policy in addition to national food standards issued through the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS). Nigeria has the National Policy for Agriculture, as well as a strong entrepreneurship culture in its academic institutions that train youth in accessible enterprise areas where agriculture fits, considering that it is the most inclusive sector in the country. Cameroon has the National Development Strategy (NDS30), which prioritises increasing agricultural productivity and creating income & opportunities.

These policies are in the context of enhancing socioeconomic growth as expressed in the country development blueprints, which also include environmental action and agriculture and food systems as an area of economic diversification and growth, with key interventions including the reversal of PHLs. This includes the National Development Plan (2021- 25) in Nigeria, vision 2035 and SND30 in Cameroon, and vision 2040 and 3rd National Development Plan in Uganda. Their realisation is also prioritised in the United Nations Sustainable Development Frameworks (UNSDCFs) of these countries through the UN country teams (UNCTs), wherein each of them, there are “enviro-centric” priority areas that aim to enhance environmental sustainability simultaneously with the actualisation of socioeconomic priorities.

Enhancing socioeconomic growth as expressed in the country development blueprints, which also include environmental action and agriculture and food systems ;

In Cameroon, these are “Strategic Priority 1: Inclusive and sustainable growth through a structural and green transformation of the economy that creates decent jobs” and “Strategic Priority 4: Environmental sustainability and efficient climate and disaster risk management”. In Nigeria, it is “Outcome 2.1: By 2027, Nigeria benefits from improved food security and nutrition, and sustainable food systems and natural resources management”, and “Outcome 2.2: By 2027, Nigeria is implementing improved management of climate change risk and building resilience to adapt to its long-term impact through the National Determined Contribution (NDC), sustainable energy production/ consumption and climate finance”. In Uganda, it is “Strategic Priority 2: Shared prosperity in a healthy environment”. The work done focused on the application of environmental solutions – nature, climate, pollution action – towards enhancing food and livelihood security and realisation of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all which aligns to actualise different socioeconomic priorities of the development blueprints.

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Climate Action Digest

Utilizing blended finance to de-risk market-driven finance to close finance gaps

The main thrust of the blended finance tool is simply to de-risk market-driven finance to close gaps for NDC implementation. It builds on actions already ongoing in the country by diverse stakeholders. Working with counterparts in the UNEP economy division and the UNEP-CCC has been backstopping the Uganda’s team of experts in developing this financing facility. In the country, the team is led by the Ministry of Water and Environment - Climate Change Department (MWE-CCD), with technical leads being the National Technical Institute (NTI), which is the Climate Change Adaptation Innovation (CHAI), and a National Project Coordinator (NPC) seated within the MWE. The overall objectives were two-fold 1) for key in-country actors to provide feedback on progress in delivering the blended finance facility, including implementing guidance provided to this end, and share any additional information on in-country plans related to a national Blended Finance Facility for NDC implementation in Uganda; 2) analyze progress made by the country in developing the blended finance facility, pending gaps that still need to be addressed, and modalities of addressing said gaps towards the formulation of a blended finance facility structure for NDC implementation in Uganda; 3) engaging national/international stakeholders for an inclusive, participatory process in closing the gaps and establishing the finance facility.

The UNEP representative participated in the internal harmonization meeting with participation drawn from the government – the MWE-CCD; the Ministry of Finance climate finance unit; the NTI, NPC, and the UNEP-CCC. Going into the discussions, the understanding was to build consensus around the blended finance facility being designed in the form of a credit guarantee scheme, domiciled within the central bank, capitalized partly by the exchequer and bilateral/multilateral sources, whose core function would be to de-risk lending to different actors, including the informal sector & youth, for actions done to implement select NDC priorities. The de-risking would be accomplished through a cash guarantee that covers against default risk by these actors to enable different financers to participate in financing NDC implementation at competitive interest rates

Deliberations brought up some key salient aspects, including the need to achieve ownership across the board and avoid having the finance facility viewed as being under a particular docket. There was also discussion on the need to avoid using the terms “finance facility” and “scheme” as other schemes were already underway in the country. The meeting also learnt that different stakeholders were undertaking various actions that resulted in de-risking effects, and all these needed to be taken onboard and built on instead of developing a facility from scratch and risking re-inventing the wheel.

These deliberations led to a consensus being reached as follows.

Uganda’s climate change law calls for NDC investments to be cross sectorial, meaning addressing the investment needs of different sectors. The discussion was therefore hailed as timely.
Building on the above, the cross-sectorial approach provides opportunities to lower the risk of NDCs investments by combining actions across diverse sectors to increase earnings and lower market risks. For example, in the case of current priorities of agroforestry, solar dryers, and solar irrigation, it was agreed that investing in solar irrigation & agroforestry in combination resulted in higher yields that investing in only one approach and combining these with solar dryers to lower postharvest losses meant increased earnings, which translated to lowered risk of financial distress and default. The need to combine NDC priorities for low-risk financing was therefore agreed upon.
It was noted that there is a need to build on the de-risking potential of diverse actors already engaged in the country and make the blended finance into a “public good” instead of a facility to be hosted or domiciled by government/central bank. It was therefore agreed that this be called a “blended financing tool” that will be a compendium of knowledge products/resources leveraging lessons and empirical experiences of a multiplicity of actors involved in one way or another in actions that de-risk financing

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Climate Action Digest

Integrating Climate Action Solutions into Food Systems in Botswana

The normative role of the UNEP in influencing proenvironment actions by state and non-state actors towards the realization of the SDGs was highlighted as a critical strength that the Botswana UN Country Teams (UNCT) will tap into and complement. Among key normative areas that UNCT will take up and expand further with UNEP is going beyond the traditional approach to finance, to also unlock human capital through inspiring and structurally guiding young people to engage in climate action enterprise by collaborating with Ba Isago University climate action entrepreneurship centre. Drive Stakeholder engagement in the launch of the Ba Isago University climate action entrepreneurship centre, technically backstopped by UNEP and leverage this to drive skills retooling of youth to tackle triple planetary crisis.

The normative role of the UNEP in influencing pro-environment actions by state and non-state actors towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was highlighted as a critical strength that the Botswana UN Country Teams (UNCT) will tap into and complement. Among key normative areas that UNCT will take up and expand further with UNEP is going beyond the traditional approach to finance, but also unlock human capital through inspiring and structurally guiding young people to engage in climate action enterprise by collaborating with Ba Isago University climate action entrepreneurship centre. This will also drive Stakeholder engagement in the launch of the Ba Isago University climate action entrepreneurship centre, technically backstopped by UNEP and leverage this to drive skills retooling of youth to drive the implementation of the triple planetary crisis. World Health Organization (WHO) was also involved and took note of the environmental dimension of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and welcomed UNEP participation in the quadripartite. Lessons from the environmental dimension of solutions will be deliberated at quadripartite to be taken up by WHO Botswana.

The aspect of exploring regional power pools as a conduit for attracting investment for Botswana’s solar industry, in line with its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) prioritization was also deliberated. It was observed that Botswana is a high solar potential country, with up to 5000times more solar potential than it needs to satisfy its population. It was agreed that an incentive to attract investment in solar would be to develop solar for trade in the regional power pools. This was agreed as an aspect around which more intelligence will be gathered with United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs). In bridging the Nationally Determined Contributions NDCs finance gap, it was agreed that UNEP share lessons from ongoing work in Ghana and Uganda that is supporting these countries to translate their NDCs into investment tools capable of attracting implementation capacity from both the formal and informal sector players.

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