Thousands of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Mauritius will benefit from a $100 million loan to the country from the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The Bank approved the loan through its public sector window to MauBank Holdings Ltd. in Mauritius to expand its SME business across sectors and foster private sector investments in a wide range of sectors, such as manufacturing, trade, agriculture, aquaculture, ICT and transport. The facility will promote inclusive growth in the country.

Through the support, MauBank projects an increase in its SME clients from 4,400 to 6,000, including 1,500 women and 300 youth enterprises by 2027. This will in turn allow these enterprises to expand their productive capacity, generate additional sales and ultimately grow their business operations as well as employment, including for women and youth.

MauBank Holdings Ltd. is wholly owned by the Government of Mauritius, which clearly commits to support MauBank to deliver its 10-Year SME Master Plan launched in 2017. The Master Plan is aligned with the African Development Bank’s High 5s agenda, particularly “Industrialise Africa”.

The Master Plan of the Government of Mauritius aims to raise SMEs’ contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 40 to 52% by 2026, while increasing SMEs’ share of national employment from 55 to 64%.

There are over 100,000 registered SMEs in Mauritius, contributing approximately 40% of GDP and employing over 280,000 people. These firms operate across a wide range of sectors, including food and beverages, textiles, furniture, paper products, chemicals, rubber and plastic, handicrafts, pottery, jewelry, trade and commerce.

The AfDB loan will contribute to gender equity and social inclusion. Female workers (30% of Mauritius’ workforce) and entrepreneurs (16% of firms with female shareholders) will benefit from the Bank’s loan. Some priority sectors of MauBank, such as agriculture, food processing, textile, handcraft and service sectors, have high potential for female employment.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 in Paris appealed to the international community to support Nigeria’s commitment to reducing the negative effects of climate change.

The president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina in a statement in Abuja said Buhari made the appeal in a submission to the “One Planet Summit” in Paris, France.

The summit with the theme “Climate Change Financing’’, was attended by over 60 heads of state and governments, as well as representatives of non-governmental  and private organisations.

President Buhari told participants of the summit that Nigeria could not implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) without adequate financial, technical and capacity building support from developed countries.

He added that “since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, we have been strengthening our national efforts toward implementing the accord and the Marrakech Call for Action.”

He said Nigeria had already ratified the Paris Agreement in May 2017 but that the country’s NDCs to reduce emission by 20 per cent by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2030 could not be attained alone.

According to him, the country is not under illusion of the challenges it is facing, having just come out of recession.

The President added that “Nigeria recognises that ensuring sustainable funding is a major constraint in efforts to implement the Nationally Determined Contributions.

“Critical mass of financial resources beyond what we can provide from our national resources will be required to effectively respond to climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges.”

On steps Nigeria took to meet its national goal in this respect, he said the country had embraced the issuance of green bond as innovative and alternative source of projects funding that would help to reduce emissions and provide robust climate infrastructure.

He explained that such infrastructure included renewable energy, low carbon transport, water infrastructure and sustainable agriculture in line with the Paris Agreement.

In furtherance of efforts to deliver the country’s pledges, the President said government was “tightening existing governance structure in Nigeria for more effective implementation of climate change activities.”

According to him, this will include additional responsibilities that will follow
the adoption of all-encompassing climate change treaty.

He noted that “government is actively promoting technologies and practices such as sustainable land management, climate resilient agriculture, water efficiency, clean energy and skills for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among others.’’

He, however, noted that sustaining these efforts would also require external support.

The measures required, he said, included “accelerating Research and Development on facilitating Access to Climate Friendly Technologies through technology pooling and collective approach to financing Research and Development”.

Others, according to him, include regulating restrictive practices in licencing agreements and anti-competitive uses of Intellectual Property and International Declaration on Climate Technologies.

He said: “In Nigeria, we are looking at insurance-based proposals to deal with loss, damage and adaptation to the poor, vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups.

“Risk mitigation through insurance must benefit those groups who currently have negligible access to any form of indemnity coverage.

“Vulnerable groups will also benefit from new technologies and ways to make insurance schemes affordable, including long term premium support.’’

The president acknowledged the fact that “the adverse impacts of climate change such as temperature rise; erratic rainfall, sand storms, desertification, low agricultural yields, drying up of water bodies like Lake Chad, gully erosion and constant flooding were a daily reality in Nigeria.”

He, therefore, admitted that highly vulnerable communities lacked the capacity to cope.

He said Nigeria would require external assistance in long term solution for source of clean power, which could be achieved through private investments to create economic competitiveness for industrialisation.

He added that “job creation and agriculture programmes throughout the country as well as inclusion of Nigeria in Climate Regional Programmes, especially strong financial support to planned project for the replenishment of Lake Chad were highly necessary.”

The President said long term solution would ensure sustained livelihood for rural and urban communities, and permanently address the conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism and terrorism, and stem illegal migration, especially of youths abroad.

In acknowledging that external support must be sustained on long term basis, Buhari emphasised that “the changes that Nigeria and other developing countries need to make cannot be undertaken overnight.”

He said fundamental restructuring of the economy was required, adding that “in this process, technology will be a powerful tool to simultaneously address climate change and advance development.”

The President said he looked up to developed countries to jointly take a leading role in mobilising support for this action plan on addressing the challenges of climate change within the framework of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In their remarks, the three co-chairmen of the plenary session stressed the imperative of global comprehensive and speedy action, including private sector financing against the devastating impact of climate change.

The co-chairmen are the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres; World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim; and French President, Emmanuel Macron.

Adesina disclosed that President Buhari had, before the summit, attended a luncheon hosted by his French counterpart in honour of visiting heads of state and governments at the Elysee Palace.

By Ismaila Chafe

The One Planet Summit, held at the instance of French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 in Paris, saw the emergence of what observers tag numerous positive initiatives, such as the World Bank committing to stop financing oil and gas exploration and extraction projects by 2019 and AXA insurance halting all new coal and oil sands development, and announcing €12 billion of green investment by 2020.

The Climate Action Network (CAN) stressed that while they are positive steps in the right direction, the pledges are not enough to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the needs of vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change and deal with the damages and losses caused by its impacts.

“We know from the 2017 United Nations Emissions Gap Report that we are not on track. The report tells us that we need to triple efforts, step up both private and public finance and accelerate the deployment of renewables to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep warming below 1.5C,” CAN emphasised in a statement made available to EnviroNews.

According to the group, 2017 is probably among the five-warmest since about 150 years and brought massive hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Caribbean, devastating floods in south Asia and out of control wildfires in California. Simultaneously, CAN adds, 2017 might have broken the global record of man-made CO2 emissions after three years of stagnating carbon pollution, indicating that global use of fossil fuels is growing stronger than its replacement by renewables.

“This only means that faster and more urgent and concrete action is needed especially by governments to avert further and severe devastation of people and destruction of ecosystems.

“Despite these warning signs, many governments, private and multilateral development and financial institutions are still funding fossil fuels in the range of hundreds of billion dollars annually. This undermines the Paris Treaty and is a complete waste of time and money that we can no longer afford.

“Governments, banks and other major actors must immediately shift investments from the energy of the past, the dirty fossil fuel industry of coal, oil and gas towards 100% renewable energy, the cheapest, healthiest and most productive energy source. Countries must also move towards energy efficiency and sustainable land use to prepare for a fully decarbonised economy by mid-century latest.

“This Summit was good for the momentum needed for 2018, a critical year filled with many opportunities and moments for countries to step up and demonstrate ambition,” CAN noted
The summit likewise attracted comments from numerous CAN members.

Greenpeace International climate campaigner Gyorgy Dallos: “The end is clearly coming for the oil and gas industry as the pace of change accelerates. After Norges Bank’s historic announcement, the World Bank – as one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions – has sent a damning vote of no confidence to the future of the fossil fuel industry. The world’s financial institutions now need to take note and decide whether their financing is going to be part of the problem or the solution. Critically, we also welcome the World Bank taking the challenge to set a unifying standard for green bonds. This is much needed especially considering the ongoing review of the China Green Bond Catalogue, which still includes coal.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF Climate & Energy Practice Leader: “The need for climate action has never been more urgent than now. Initiatives, such as this Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron, are important to keep our leaders committed, political will high and momentum in scaling and speeding up new and existing climate actions across all actors. This is critical if we are to keep warming below 1.5°C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

Harjeet Singh, Climate Lead for ActionAid International: “On the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement, President Macron has successfully attracted a who’s who of world and business leaders. The World Bank’s announcement  on shifting investments away from fossil fuels marks an important step towards a greener global economy.

“Many leaders put the spotlight on climate impacts and strategies to cope, and plenty of sympathy was expressed for the countries suffering from extreme climate events. Unfortunately, sympathy doesn’t cover costs for vulnerable communities overwhelmed with climate impacts. The world needs major mobilisations of public finance to cope with the scale of the challenge.

“President Macron had raised expectations that he would make a concrete announcement of more public finance to help poor countries deal with climate impacts and to scale up climate action. Instead, business took centre stage, while announcements of public finance were disappointingly scarce. Sadly, most of the leaders at the One Planet Summit seem to have forgotten that public financing is necessary for people to protect their safety and food security from climate impacts. While action by businesses is needed, governments need reminding that they can’t fix climate change by giving up their responsibilities and letting business dictate the entire climate agenda.

“The notable exception was the announcement of £140 million from the UK government, to help poor communities suffering from climate impacts. Theresa May sent an important message to world leaders, that rich countries must recognise their responsibility to provide public finance to help vulnerable countries to deal with climate impacts.

Brett Fleishman, 350.org Senior Finance Campaigner: “President Macron and other world leaders, are meeting right now to supposedly discuss shifting capital to climate solutions. But we are here to ring the alarm by bringing attention to the unabated support of the fossil fuel industry. We have research that clearly demonstrates that the French government, through its many agencies, is still invested in the energies sources of the past. This acts as a drag on the climate finance summit. This charade of caring about the planet can’t go on. Every euro and dollar spent on adaptation and mitigation is undercut by even more money spent on the fossil fuel industry. Whatever the outcomes from this summit, the global climate movement will keep on pushing through 2018 to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy for all.”

Alex Doukas, Director of the Stop Funding Fossils Programme at Oil Change International:
“The World Bank’s monumental announcement that they are moving out of upstream oil and gas finance after 2019 stole the show in Paris. This move from the World Bank demonstrates real climate leadership, and could help signal a broader shift away from the tens of billions of dollars in public finance that G20 governments and multilateral development banks dump into fossil fuels each year. These institutions still provide $72 billion in public finance to fossil fuels annually, which is why a shift away from fossil fuel finance is crucial if we hope to meet the aims of the Paris Agreement. Government commitments to scale up climate finance are important, but they’re not enough. Others need to follow the lead of the World Bank and signal that they will stop funding fossils.”

Nick Mabey, CEO and Co-founder E3G: “The success of the One Planet Summit shows the world has moved past Trump and is focusing on delivering the Paris Agreement. The sheer amount of announcements at the Summit prove smart finance is moving out of fossil fuels and into the clean economy. We must now follow through to make sure governments, businesses and financial institutions increase their climate ambition to 2020 and beyond.”

Sven Harmeling, Global Policy Lead, Care International’s Climate Change and Resilience Platform: “CARE welcomes the One Planet Summit where promising announcements were made to move away from fossil fuels to help slow down the escalation of climate change, such as by the World Bank and the insurance company AXA. However, we are disappointed by the lack of commitments from developed countries for adaptation finance which is necessary to help vulnerable people, especially women and girls, prepare for climate change impacts such more severe floods and droughts. Nations and private donors must step up their ambition in 2018.”

Erin Flanagan, Federal policy director at the Pembina Institute in Canada: “Canada continues to take steps to phase-out dirty coal-fired power from its domestic electricity mix by 2030. And today, together with the World Bank, it took a new step to accelerate the coal-to-clean transition around the world. We commend this important step forward and call on other countries join in this momentum.”

Aki Kachi, International Policy Director, Carbon Market Watch: “On the anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement, world leaders have gathered again in Paris to reiterate their commitment and many mention carbon pricing. For carbon pricing to actually play the role it needs to, taxes and cap and trade programmes need to start to bite: prices must rise rapidly to 40-80 USD per tonne CO2 by 2020.”

Christoph Bals, Policy Director, Germanwatch, said: “The One Planet Summit showed we are in a new phase of international climate action focusing on achieving the objectives agreed by all governments of the world two years ago. The summit showed that there is enormous momentum to step up global climate action, particularly in three areas: formulating a clear objective for national long term targets of net-zero emissions by 2050; setting an investment relevant minimum price on carbon emissions; and requiring companies to disclose their climate risks and strategies in a forward looking and comparable way. For the future German government, this summit has formulated clear homework: France is asking for a joint leadership role to set a carbon-neutrality objective by 2050, to introduce a investment relevant minimum carbon price for all sectors and make forward looking climate disclosure mandatory for companies and investors.”

Catherine Abreu, Executive Director, Climate Action Network Canada: “Celebrating the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement by showcasing its influence on global economic trends was a brilliant way to drive home the real world implications of climate action and the need to support the world’s most vulnerable communities as they fight climate change and respond to its devastating impacts. However, high-level Summits are only as good as the actions they generate, and the world will be watching to see to what extent momentum is increased to shift financial flows and mobilise the trillions of dollars in climate finance required.

“As one of the founders of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, Canada’s move to put its money where its mouth is and partner with the World Bank to finance the coal-to-clean energy transition in developing countries and small island states is a great example of the action required. Now attention must turn, in Canada and around the world, to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Countries can’t adequately fund climate solutions while they continue to fund the problem.”

Nithi Nesadurai Regional Coordinator Climate Action Network South-East Asia: “The One Planet Summit keeps the focus of the global community on the Paris Agreement and outcomes of COP23, as we move into the COP24 next year when countries are expected to raise their ambition on climate action through the Talanoa Dialogue. But for this Summit to be truly meaningful, it needs to send a message that most of the global community, with industrialised countries taking the lead, need to go faster and further than previously considered towards raising their ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Non-state actors and all sectors also need to take ownership of this effort and step up if we are to get to our goal of keeping temperature rise below 1.5C. It is the least we can do for our planet.”

Like most African countries, Ethiopia is one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated, experiencing climate change effects including changes in rainfall patterns and severe droughts. However, Ethiopia has taken advantage of the challenges and is transforming her once faltering economy into the world’s fastest growing economy, according to the World Bank.

World Bank’s June 2017 edition of Global Economic Prospects identifies Ethiopia as the fastest-growing economy this year. The country’s GDP was projected to grow at 8.3% in contrast to global growth projected to be 2.7%.

While, Analysts have credited the nation’s accelerated growth to government spending on infrastructural development, the Ethiopian government, however, attributes the phenomenal growth to the re-positioning of the country’s leadership to address its complex challenges “through the green growth path that fosters development and sustainability.”

Ethiopia is pursuing a path of green economy, in which growth in income and employment is driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Thus, the country has a vision to “achieve middle-income status by 2025 in a climate-resilient green economy.”

The country’s Green Economy Strategy document titled, “Ethiopia’s Climate-Resilient Green Economy,” (CRGE), outlines how the country intends to make progress in that direction. The country is focusing selectively on the four main pillars of agriculture, forestry, energy and transport, which are key to development and at the same time contribute significantly to carbon emissions.

Carbon emission is the release of carbon dioxide mainly from the burning of fossil fuels like natural gas, crude oil and coal as well as the destruction of forests and tilling of land. These activities also release other dangerous gases, which together with carbon, are known as greenhouse gases (GHG) that contribute to global warming and are harmful to the earth and human life.

Ethiopia’s strategic plan for agriculture is to improve crop and livestock production practices for higher food security and farmer income, while reducing emissions. In the forestry sector, the goal is to protect and re-establish forests for their economic and ecosystem services, including carbon stocks. The goal for the energy sector is to expand electricity generation from renewable sources of energy for domestic and regional markets. While, the country is seeking to completely overhaul its transport, industry and construction sectors through modern energy-efficient technologies.

As part of the strategy, the government has selected four initiatives for fast-track implementation. The initiatives are specifically looking at exploiting the vast hydropower potential, large-scale promotion of advanced rural cooking technologies, efficiency improvements to the livestock value chain, and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).

According to the Strategy Document, “these initiatives have the best chances of promoting growth immediately, capturing large abatement potentials, and attracting climate finance for their implementation.” Moreover, implementing the initiatives will offer important co-benefits such as improved public health, through better air and water quality. It will also promote rural economic development by increasing soil fertility and food security as well as creating additional jobs with high value added.

The Strategy Document acknowledges that the green economy path goals “are ambitious,” considering the implementation period of 14 years from the time the Strategy was approved in 2011 to the assigned attainment deadline of 2025. Besides, building of Ethiopia’s green economy requires an estimated total expenditure of about $150 billion over the next 20 years, according to the Strategy.

But the government is committed to make this work and believes that one sure way of moving forward is through the exchange of GHG emissions abatement for climate finance to fund some of the required investment.

Ethiopia is taking advantage of the various Climate Finance Schemes such as the Green Climate Finance set up by the international community to compensate developing countries for the provision of environmental services to the world. The government is also collaborating with bi- and multilateral development partners as well as the private sector to achieve the ambitious national green goals.

The government has high optimism that many of the initiatives have potential to offer positive returns on investments, and thereby, directly promote economic growth. Indeed, the prospects for growth are high and the government projects a growth rate of 11%, which is above the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s forecasts for Ethiopia of a real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 8% yearly over a five year period from 2016 to 2020.

The Ethiopian Ambassador to Ghana, Regassa Kefale Ere, says the on-going transformation of his country’s economy is due to “quality leadership, dedication and determination of government to make the green economy strategy work.”

In an interview, he explained that government has ensured that private sector involvement and investment are being driven by local interests. This means government determines the conditions for financing, rather than the financiers setting the terms for investment. He said: “For instance, in the telecommunication sector, government will not open it up to foreign investors until the entire country is networked.”

“This approach has been adopted because of the realization that markets do not answer all problems, some require government interventions to make things work,” Regassa noted.

He expressed pride in his country’s present status as the world’s cheapest electricity supplier at 0.4 cents (USA) per kilowatts, and the country plans to expand energy production from the current 4,500 megawatts to 17,000 megawatts in the next three years.

“This will be realised after the expansion of the dam is completed to produce a top up energy supply of 6500 megawatts,” says Regassa. And this is likely to boost power supply to neighboring countries like Sudan and Djibouti, who are each currently getting 100 megawatts of power from Ethiopia.

Additionally, the country will be able to fulfill its mandate to Kenya and Tanzania per the terms of a recent power purchasing agreement. Currently, the power transmission line which connects Ethiopia’s national grid to Kenya and Tanzania is under construction, with funding from the African Development Bank (AFDB).

Regassa explained that “the essence of the Green Economy Strategy is that the land and people are the country’s main resources with majority engaged in agriculture, hence the government’s determination to promote agricultural based industrialisation.”

He said, “As part of the strategy, government is establishing a number of industrial parks to enhance and project agro processing, horticulture, leather products, garments and pharmaceuticals.”

To this end, the Hawassa Industrial Park alone is employing 10,000 people at its current partial operational level, but is projected to create over 60,000 jobs at its full operational capacity. Meanwhile, the recently inaugurated Mekelle and Kombolcha Parks are also attracting renowned foreign garment and textile manufacturers.

“Therefore, the number of people employed at the parks is increasing from time to time,” Regassa observed.

By Ama Kudom-Agyemang, Accra