Abidjan: The African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a grant of $4.23 million to implement the second phase of a project aimed at integrating natural capital into development financing in Africa. The initiative will be rolled out across thirteen countries: Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, C´te d'Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
According to African Press Organization, the project will receive in-kind contributions from partner institutions such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the German public agency for international cooperation (GIZ), the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa's Development, the Economic Commission for Africa, and the United Nations Environment Programme. These contributions will support efforts to create an environment where natural capital is better utilized and integrated into political and financial decision-making processes. The participating countries will also make contributions to the project.
Scheduled for implementation between October 2026 and September 2029, the project is expected to generate outputs in areas like policy, statistics, institutions, and knowledge. These outputs will aid in the integration of natural capital into development planning, thereby strengthening policy-making systems, statistical systems, institutional frameworks, and knowledge-generation mechanisms. This will enable the regional member countries and the African Development Bank Group to effectively assess natural capital and incorporate it into public policy-making.
The project will employ an integrated set of measures, including policy support, technical assistance, assessments of statistical readiness, biodiversity financing tools, pilot projects to assess green wealth, capacity building, and peer learning. These efforts are intended to foster development that is resilient to climate change, nature-friendly, and inclusive. By enabling African countries to better identify, measure, and manage their natural wealth, the project aims to strengthen the evidence base that informs development financing, dialogue on sovereign policies, and the mobilization of green investments.
Innocent Onah, Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank Group, stated, "This project is intended to contribute to development that is resilient to the effects of climate change, nature-friendly, and inclusive." He further noted that in the long term, the project could lead to tangible improvements in the target countries in terms of GDP growth, increased foreign direct investment inflows, economic development, poverty reduction, improved employment, economic competitiveness, and financial and economic risk ratings.