By Chimezie Godfrey
Global leaders and influential figures converged on the margins of the 78th United Nations General Assembly to address the pressing climate crisis and call for an urgent increase in green investments.
The high-level event “Scaling Up Green Investments To Address Climate Change”, hosted by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), mobilized financial commitments for green and sustainable projects and showcased public private partnerships, innovative approaches, knowledge exchange and policy changes that can incentivize green investments.
“Africa is rich in green resources that can power accelerated sustainable development. This event is critical to foster Green investments in innovations and climate-smart projects in Africa, which are key to spark deep transformations and a better future for all in Africa and beyond” said Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Bureau for Africa Director.
The high level panel united institutional leaders, private sector entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and experts to boost joint actions towards climate-smart agriculture and better food systems in Africa. “Ensuring funding availability through the insurance market is crucial,” said Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, the United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Director General of the African Risk Capacity Group”, who also pointed out the main challenge that lies in the Triple A of insurance: affordability, availability, and accessibility of premium financing. “Disaster management is often not integrated into the public policies of many African governments. It is imperative that we prioritize a culture of contingency planning within climate resilience investments to enable African governments to proactively anticipate and respond effectively.”
Speakers from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Bank and the Institutional Investor Network (IIN) underscored the importance of fostering coordinated dialogues among a broad spectrum of stakeholders, all striving for a collaborative response to the climate crisis.
“As the Global Stocktake concluded, the solutions to address the Climate Crisis are here – but their implementation needs to be scaled up massively, urgently. That requires scaling up green investment in a just energy transition as well as low-carbon economic development,” Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI said. “Smart financial solutions, from blended finance, leveraging climate finance with public private partnerships, debt for nature and climate swaps, green, sustainable, blue or resilience bonds – together we can scale up green investments to address the climate crisis and create green jobs for vulnerable populations, particularly women and youth,” Dr. Rijsberman added.
This high-level UNGA 78 side event was co-organized by GGGI, UNDP, the World Bank, AfriCatalyst and the Institutional Investor Network.
