‘Africa must stop private car use in urban areas’
Africa must stop the use of private cars in its urban areas if it really wants to achieve green goals. This was made known during a discourse on how following a green approach to
closing Africa’s huge infrastructure gap can create public and private value
with co-benefits across a diverse range of stakeholders and goals, says Linus
Mofor, Senior Environmental Affairs Officer for Energy, Infrastructure and
Climate Change at the ECA’s African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC).
In his remarks at an event at the
just-ended Global Green Growth Week 2017 which was held under the theme, Unlocking
Africa’s Green Growth Potential, Mofor presented the Africa Climate Resilient
Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) – a joint initiative of the ECA, the World Bank,
the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and the Nordic
Development Fund, that is hosted in the ACPC, as an example of how
infrastructure can be made greener.
He said AFRI-RES was put in place
with the aim of strengthening the capacity of African institutions as well as
the private sector to plan, design and implement infrastructure investments
that are resilient to climate variability and change in selected sectors.
“Thus enabling those investments
to reap the resilience dividend,” he said, adding that such a facility can
assist authorities to make good infrastructure investment decisions to ensure
performance and return on investment in a changing climate.
He said greening infrastructure
means ensuring resource efficiency to reduce the intensity of inputs and
emission; compliance with environmental safeguards and standards to ensure environmental
and social sustainability; and resilience to natural disasters, as well as
weather and climate change and variability.
The event titled The What, Why
and How of Making the Transformation of Africa’s Infrastructure Greener, was
organized by the ECA in partnership with the Global Green Growth Institute and
Dalberg as part of the Global Green Growth Week 2017.
In opening remarks on behalf of
Ms. Fatima Denton, Director of the Special Initiatives Division of the ECA, Nassim
Oulmane, Head of Green Economy and Natural Resources at the ECA, stressed the
urgency to unlock Africa’s enormous potential for green growth to drive social
and economic transformation to meet the development goals set out in the
African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
He said for this to happen,
concerted efforts among all key stakeholders were needed to tackle the
historical and structural constraints holding back the continent, and to
leverage growth towards a green economy trajectory.
Dauda Suma, Senior Industrial
Advisor at the Global Green Growth Institute, speaking on behalf of Robert
Mukiza, GGGI Country Representative in Ethiopia, said Africa’s rapid
urbanization has presented both a dynamic opportunity and a challenge to
Africa.
“On the one hand, urbanisation is
predicted to deliver stronger economic growth rates for Africa. On the other
hand, urbanisation also underlines the huge infrastructure gap in Africa,
especially in energy and transportation,” he said adding that the establishment
of GGGI regional hub in Addis Ababa in the near future will strengthen its
support to African countries to achieve green infrastructure successfully.
Jordan Fabyanske, Associate
Partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, moderating the session and
speaking on behalf of Dalberg, said; “More than half of the infrastructure the
world will have by 2070 hasn’t been built yet, and the fraction is even larger
in Africa. We have a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to ensure Africa’s infrastructure contributes maximally to more
climate resilient, green and inclusive African economies.”
Partnerships, he said, are
required to seize this opportunity, especially the resources and expertise of
the private sector.
“It also requires a shift in how
we as development partners think and plan. It requires new tools for designing
more holistic and integrated infrastructure solutions, improved measurement of
the many co-benefits of infrastructure projects, and new means and methods of
capturing the economic value of those co-benefits.”
Gareth Phillips, Chief of Green Growth and
Climate Change at the African Development Bank, said, “It is essential to
ensure that we build assets which can continue to operate under conditions of
changing climates but it is also vital to ensure assets can remain profitable
in future policy environments.”
Deputy Director Ian de Cruz of
Global Strategy and Partnerships at the New Climate Economy said changing
global trends were creating new opportunities for economic transformation and
green industrialization in Africa and that “African countries can serve as
global leaders in pioneering these new economic transformation pathways,” he
said.
Magnus Asbjornsson, Executive
Director, Reykjavik Geothermal Ltd, said, “Africa has an incredible wealth of
renewable energy resources, and we have seen huge appetite among private
investors around the world to invest in clean energy on the continent. The
bottleneck is to find projects that combine high quality sponsors, strong and
genuine government support, a secure off-taker, a clear and stable legal
framework and risk-commensurate returns.”
He praised Ethiopia’s “pioneering
vision and wholehearted support that has led us to the verge of signing the
twin 500 MW, US$ 2 billion Corbetti and Tulu Moye geothermal projects, and we
believe it will serve as an example of how private investment can be mobilized
to make the continent’s infrastructure greener.”
Atnafseged Kifle Demeke, an
advisor in the Ethiopian Ministry of Transport, said for mass rapid transit
systems to contribute to a climate-resilient, green and inclusive economy, the
continent must break the vicious circle of private car use in urban areas.
The main objective of the event
was to engage high level public and private sector leaders, experts,
influencers and investors to deliberate and provide insights and key policy
messages to inform and influence transformative thinking, planning and
partnership for accelerated climate-resilient and resource-efficient
infrastructure development in Africa.
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