Innovative climate finance for unlocking development and equity in Africa

The negative impacts of climate change in West Africa are enormous. However, despite the compelling case for action against the climate crisis and the strong climate commitments articulated in the Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans, African countries face persistent barriers to accessing and deploying climate finance at scale and with equity. Grassroots actors, micro, small and medium-size enterprises, women-led enterprises and sub-national governments, as well as energy transition value chain operators, face structural barriers to accessing climate finance.

Many finance products such as conventional loans, insurance and credit lines are not designed or tailored to women’s needs or small-scale, climate-smart investments, often requiring collateral that women lack, offering inappropriate loan sizes or terms, or excluding informal enterprises. While some studies have begun to document the synergies between women’s economic empowerment and low-carbon transitions at global and regional levels, evidence remains somewhat fragmented, context-specific and unevenly applied to policy and finance mechanisms in Africa.

This project aims to strengthen fiscal, financial and policy frameworks for enhanced public and private sector mobilization of climate finance. It also aims to develop innovative financial tools and enhance institutional capacity towards the achievement of low-carbon climate-resilient development in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

It will identify key structural and institutional barriers to accessing climate finance, co-design and pilot-test an innovative financial instrument to inform scale-up strategies, strengthen capacities in local financial intermediaries and promote uptake of findings through policy briefs, discussion papers and journal papers as well as development of a web page, knowledge sharing at forums, policy dialogues and dissemination workshops.