Africa urges developed world to honor 100 bln USD annual climate finance pledge

ACCRA, March 19 (Xinhua) -- The African Union has called on the developed countries to honor their pledge of mobilizing an annual financing of 100 billion U.S. dollars to support climate change mitigation and adaptation measures by developing countries.

Making the call on behalf of the union at the plenary session of the Africa Climate Week here on Monday, Olushola Olayide, a senior policy officer of the Commission said the availability of the fund was crucial for the success of Africa's own mitigation and adaptation activities.

"To implement the Paris Agreement in Africa, 48 African member states have ratified this agreement. Permit me to call on the developed countries to deliver the 100 billion US Dollars per year by 2020," she stated.

Olayide added: "Africa is in dire need of climate finance, capacity building, technology development and transfer to address the crucial need of adaptation which is Africa's priority and for building climate resilient agriculture and food systems."

She re-echoed the commitment of the leadership of the AU to implementing the Paris Agreement, as well as measures to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and the continental body's own Agenda 2063.

At a meeting in Paris in September 2015, 18 industrialized countries pledged to jointly mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources, to address the needs of developing countries in fighting global warming, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation.

The week-long African Climate Week being hosted by Ghana is under the theme "Climate Action in Africa: A race we can win."

Abebe Haile Gabriel, Assistant Director General and African Regional Representative of the United Nations (UN) Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) underscored the importance of agriculture and food systems to global climate action, adding that Africa was also very key for global climate action.

Organizing the Africa Climate week, according to him was important since it will emphasize the importance of Africa as well as the importance of agriculture and food systems for global action.

"The issue at hand is about socio-economic transformation; transformation of agriculture and food systems in particular within the dynamic rural setting. Agriculture transformation is a priority sustainable development agenda in Africa," Haile-Gabriel said.

The FAO official stressed: "There can be no shortcuts to meeting the challenge of feeding of over two billion Africans by 2050. It cannot also be realized without addressing the challenge of vulnerabilities in a sustainable manner."