Addis Ababa, 16 June 2021 - The fifth Africa Climate Resilient Investment Summit (ACRIS-5), which started today will address the financing of climate resilience for Africa's green recovery. ACRIS-5 will be virtual and is jointly organized by the African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and World Bank (WB) in partnership with the African Development Bank and with core support from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF). It is slated to take place on 16-17 of June. The 2021 ACRIS-5 theme is "Embedding and financing climate resilience towards Africa's green recovery".
Consolidating the public and private sector to identify opportunities for leveraging limited public resources and investments needed to develop Africa's infrastructure is one of the two main objectives of ACRIS-5. The second objective of this critical continental summit revolves around discussions on the integration of climate resilience in investments in critical sectors of agriculture, energy, water, transport, ecosystems, and cities as a response to the twin crises of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
ACRIS-5 is geared towards supporting African countries in placing green infrastructure investments at the heart of the continent’s green recovery and attainment of the Paris Agreement's goals, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union's Agenda 2063.
Six high-level panel sessions will be the main features of the two-day summit.
The first panel session will deal with investing in cross-border energy infrastructure. It will bring together private-sector experts and senior policymakers to discuss the obstacles facing cross-border energy infrastructure investments.
The panel is expected to identify policy and regulatory actions needed to interconnect Africa's power systems to enhance climate resilience on the continent and capitalise on the opportunities offered by the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). From vulnerability to resilience will be the subject addressed by the second panel. This session will explore opportunities for African nations and coalesces around policymakers, development partners and the private sector to map out ways in which African countries can overcome the triple health, climate and economic crises to build stronger economies and climate resilient communities.
Other scheduled panels will deliberate on how to boost food security through Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and a discourse on the building resilience through nature-based solutions. Opportunities and partnerships for Africa Climate Resilience Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) alongside sustainable financing instruments, designing pathways on risk mitigation for climate resilience in post-COVID Africa will be the final panel sessions of ACRIS-5.
In the last six years that ACRIS has congregated, significant milestones have been achieved as well as vital development lessons. ACRIS-5 is expected to build on previous successes even as it provides a platform for introducing global technology and service providers to shore-up Africa’s green recovery agenda.