The African Development Bank’s (AfDB) financing portfolio in Mozambique currently stands at 1.3 billion dollars, with the prospect of increased support for climate change resilience projects.
‘The AfDB finances structuring projects that have a significant impact on improving the lives of citizens and that make it possible to supplement the state’s resources in realising the government’s five-year plan. We are now moving on to matters relating to climate change,’ explained the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, Carla Louveira, on the sidelines of the AfDB’s annual meetings, which are taking place in Kenya.
According to the minister, the AfDB’s funding in the country is distributed 49 per cent in the energy sector, 32 per cent in roads, 14 per cent in agriculture and 2 per cent in water and sanitation.
Carla Louveira, who has been in Nairobi since Monday (27), also said that Mozambique is working with multilateral organisations to ‘gauge the country’s carbon credit potential’, stressing that the Executive has already set up a Climate Finance office to study mechanisms on how to ‘catapult the gains from carbon credit measurement’.
‘We are liaising in terms of technical advice so that we can better frame and produce appropriate legislation to respond to the various conversion instruments, whether it’s converting debt into climate, or transforming carbon credits into potential positive financial impacts for the country,’ she added.
According to the minister, Mozambique is also paying attention to the recent decisions to convert drawing rights (SDR) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to allocate investment through the AfDB for projects involving climate change.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
The 2018-19 rainy season was one of the most severe on record in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.
The African Development Bank is Africa’s leading development finance institution and is in Nairobi for five days (27-31 May) to debate ‘Africa’s Transformation, the African Development Bank Group and the Reform of the Global Financial Architecture’, bringing together more than three thousand participants, including politicians, government officials, economists and experts from various fields from around the world.
This year’s meetings include the 59th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank and the 50th Meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Fund.
The AfDB’s financing in the country is distributed 49 per cent in the energy sector, 32 per cent in roads, 14 per cent in agriculture and 2 per cent in the area of water and sanitation
According to AfDB information, despite ‘sustained economic growth over the past two decades, Africa’s economic transformation remains incomplete. The continent’s real Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.3 per cent a year between 2000-22, compared to the world average of 2.9 per cent, and many of the world’s ten fastest growing economies were located in Africa.’
‘Despite this solid growth performance, the structure of African economies has not changed significantly over the last two decades, with the agriculture, industry and services sectors accounting for an average of 16 per cent, 33 per cent and 51 per cent respectively of Africa’s overall GDP,’ the institution recalled.
The AfDB has 81 member states, including 53 African countries and 28 countries outside the continent, including Portugal and Brazil.
