The African Development Bank (AfDB) on Friday announced the appointment of a group of renowned experts to the board of the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism (ABM), a continental initiative being undertaken to mobilize financing for resilience to the negative impacts of climate change.
The bank stated that it established the interim executive board of the ABM on 4 October 2019 and the board was being assisted by an interim secretariat located in the Bank’s Climate Change and Green Growth department and headed by the Director, Dr. Anthony Nyong.
According to a news report distributed on behalf of the continental development finance institution by the Africa Press Organsiation (APO) Group on the appointment, members of the board are: Evelyne Batamuliza, a climate change finance and gender expert from Rwanda; Louise Helen Brown, a Namibian who formerly worked for the African Development Bank; and Luc Gnacadja, who served as Benin’s Minister of the Environment, Housing, and Urban Planning from June 1999 to February 2005.
Others are, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification; Swiss climate policy expert Dr. Axel Michaelowa; Senegal’s Daouda Ben Oumar Ndiaye, lead climate adaptation specialist at the Islamic Development Bank; Doreen Mnyulwa from Zimbabwe, director of the Regional Agriculture and Environmental Innovation Network for Africa; Fatima-Zahra Taibi from Morocco, senior advisor at the United Nations Environment /Technical University of Denmark (DTU) Partnership; and Assefa Tofu, director of the Ethiopia Dry Lands Development Program of World Vision Ethiopia.
Speaking on the board membership, Dr. Anthony Nyong, said: “We have on board some of the brightest minds in the climate change world, with tons of experience in different areas and with different stakeholder groups for ABM. They have the noble and pioneering task of convincing the world that adaptation action, just like mitigation action, has value and should be rewarded
“I am proud of the excellent composition of the ABM board, its regional distribution and full gender equality”, Nyong said.
The ABM aims to mobilize public and private sector finance for enhanced climate change resilience and adaptation by creating a new asset – certified adaptation benefits.
The mechanism will assist developing countries with meeting climate change needs and priorities for adaptation set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, in particular those requiring international cooperation.
During the pilot phase, the African Development Bank and partners will seek funding from various sources to realize multiple small-scale resilience projects to test the mechanism on the ground. The demonstration projects will be used to develop methodologies for delivery of adaptation benefits, verify the outcomes and prove the effectiveness of ABM for mobilizing new adaptation finance for replication.
The concept of the ABM , which is potentially applicable in all countries, was developed by the AfDB with the support of Climate Investment Funds in ollaboration with the governments of Uganda and Cote d’Ivoire and various stakeholders.
