African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC) Stakeholder Consultative Dialogue

The Global Center on Adaptation and the African Development Bank are convening an open stakeholder consultation on the new vision and strategic agenda for the African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC)

Event description:

According to a recent report from Moody’s, African banks are vulnerable to the increasing frequency and severity of climate change shocks unless lenders take action to manage these risks. Moody expects that environmental factors will lead to a deterioration of banks’ credit quality and profitability in the long term unless they take measures to manage climate and environmental-related risks.

However, the African financial sector has remained largely absent from the climate agenda. The African Financial Sector must be mobilized to ensure that it has a voice in the global discussions on climate change. This will ensure that its specific needs and challenges are considered in the formulation of international climate finance policies.

For these reasons, the African Development Bank established the African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC) in 2018 as a platform to engage Africa’s financial sector with the goal of de-risking and directing capital flows towards low-carbon and climate-resilient investments in the continent. AFAC aims to ensure that current and future financial risks and opportunities are integrated into investment decision-making. It promotes climate action through knowledge sharing, climate risk-mitigating financial instruments, climate risk disclosure, and mobilizing climate finance.

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) are convening an open stakeholder consultation on the African Financial Alliance on Climate Change’s (AFAC) new vision and strategic agenda. The discussion will be in-person at COP 27 Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

The objective of this stakeholder consultation is to share and solicit inputs on the updated vision and strategic agenda of AFAC to green the African financial system.

This dialogue’s expected outcome is enhancing AFAC’s new strategy and framework.

This stakeholder consultation aims to stimulate longer-term communication and collaboration on promoting low-carbon and climate-resilient investments in Africa.

The discussion will focus on three discussion points:

• The AFAC’s new strategy and agenda
• The public sector needs
• The private sector expectations

Key questions:

• What are AFAC’s key strategic priorities and actions?
• How can AFAC support Central Banks and financial sector regulators?
• How can AFAC support the African financial sector in integrating climate risks and opportunities in decision-making?