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FrançaisCTCN Africa Regional Forum: accelerating the implementation of Climate Solutions in Africa through sharing and networking
Submitted by on Thu, 04/26/2018 - 15:49
The CTCN first Pan-African Regional Forum and the African Carbon Forum were held in Nairobi (Kenya) from April 9 to 13.
Cécile Carlier, Managing Director of I&P Conseil and mandated by ADEME (which represents France at the CTCN), was able to participate in these events which tried to bring together all the actors of the African public and private sector around the challenges of climate change: what optimal technological solutions to not exceed +2° C ? What funding is needed to implement them?
The CTCN, both a network and a tool of the United Nations, has for main objective to help countries acquiring specific technology and expertise for the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement. With the adoption of this agreement at the end of 2015 and its entry into force at the end of 2016, each signatory country must develop national contribution targets (Nationally Determined Contribution) in order to reduce its emissions, limit global warming and adapt itself proactively to climate change
These represent huge technology transfer challenges that affect many areas: renewable energies, water management, waste management, forest conservation. The CTCN network has structured 3 services to support countries: technical assistance, experience sharing and capacity building, all with networking and strengthening global collaboration. For the first time, the National Designated Entity (NDE) forum brought together both French-speaking and English-speaking African countries. Africa accounts for about 43% of technical assistance requests, all formulated through NDEs. Therefore at a country level we can easily understand the NDEs major role in climate initiatives.
These regional forums represent a great opportunity to exchange the best practices and share technical and financial solutions. More specifically, this forum highlighted the very important needs of African countries, especially French-speaking countries, to enable them to design and deploy climate technologies. As a consequence, the CTCN has established a "fast technical assessment request" in order to respond more quickly to simple requests (such as support for the implementation of technology need assessment). This measure was taken to facilitate optimal sharing of effective solutions. The forum also highlighted the importance of sharing good practices between Anglophone and Francophone countries in Africa.
Finally, two European countries were invited to speak at the Forum, France through ADEME (NDE) and Germany (through its Ministry of the Environment). The CTCN's aim was to promote technological and financial collaboration with countries that emit green and low-carbon technologies.
As such, I&P Conseil first presented ADEME's actions within the CTCN network and then mentioned some French technical or financial actors (public and private) working on the Climate theme. The objective was also to understand how we can better involve eco-companies and private financial players in projects implemented by the CTCN and how promoting the replication of investable projects.
It appears that the real challenge is to bring together the projects and methods of the United Nations with the private sector, and enable these different actors to understand each other through multi-stakeholder project engineering that combines impact and profitability.
In order to support African countries in their green leapfroging, it is essential to bring together all development actors: United Nations, private, public, NGOs to capitalize on the skills and experiences of each and build sustainable, responsible (societal and environmental impact), innovative economic models. Some design offices and consultants know how to organize these complex projects, which serve shareholders and beneficiaries (PAYG systems). It is now a question of multiplying this competence and sharing it with African institutions and private individuals.
The awareness is now acquired. There is an urgent need to accelerate the implementation of projects: Africa has 50% of the planet's ENR potential, but each year it incurs a cost of 2 to 4% of GDP because of electricity shortages (2017 Oxfam’s report). The continent represents the first victim of climate change and these figures demonstrate why the climate is an emergency to address in this region of the world.
About
The CTCN (Climate Technology Centre & Network) is the operational arm of the UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) technology mechanism, hosted by UNEP and UNIDO.
ADEME is a French Renewable Energy Association. It is the National Designated Entity for France within the CTCN network.