ACBF's Model Tweak and Africa's Sustainable Financing Challenges

Now the Chair of the African Capacity Building Foundation Executive Board, Erastus Mwencha says the Foundation is tweaking its model to provide more sustainable financing and adapt to dynamics crucial to transform the bulk of African countries to middle-income economies. Now in a chat with CNBC Africa, he notes Africa needs to do more in preparing for programmes that can meet the criteria for climate adaptation and mitigation.' Perhaps in talking about the theme of the year, it's also important to reflect on the Africa Capacity Building Foundation, which is an institution that was created way back in 1991 with the ministers of finance, with the support of the World Bank, to be able to capacitate the countries with the planning and financial management, but using evidence, which of course means evidence is data. As it is said, in God we trust, everything else is data. And so this is one of the things that ACBF has done and has helped to create a number of think tanks in Africa, which are supporting African countries, particularly in the area of public finance management and also in human resource development. Now turning to the question of the theme, the biggest challenge that now faces our universe, our earth, which is threatening not only our economies, our livelihood, but also the very existence of our human beings, is climate change. And because of that, you wouldn't have had a better theme than something that is so pressing. And of course, one then has to proceed to say why the theme is because not enough is being done. Not enough being done because there is issue of capacity and there is also issue of commitment. And so this is to address those two challenges. Because now we can't underplay the role of think tanks in all of this, and I'd like you to speak to that specifically. Why think tanks are very crucial to Africa's development trajectory? For the very reason that you mentioned, that it's crucial for us to have evidence-based planning, to have data that can inform our actions, to have information that can help us through projections, and to have data that can also estimate the needs that we have now and for the future. Because now we're looking at an institution like the ACBF now. Well, we came about about 30 years ago, like you rightly said, we've seen ACBF support many think tanks so far to date. Some of them I can think of, CAPEC for example, we celebrated 30 years as well on the continent there, doing a lot of development work in Cote d'Ivoire and across the region. But I understand now that the ACBF is thinking about tweaking its business model, and I'm trying to understand what has informed that decision and how you're trying to make the decision more fit for purpose to Africa's development needs. For one reason, that for a long time ACBF kind of depended on grant financing from World Bank, from philanthropic organizations, and also to a large extent also contribution by member states. But, you know, looking at the realities that is facing the continent now, many countries are struggling with debt servicing, climate change is causing problems for many countries to be able even to produce enough in terms of food, security, and many others. ACBF has to adapt, and part of the adaptation is to change the model. A model that is more to look at issues of sustainable financing, but also to look at changing the tune from institution and human resource capacity, but also looking at how do we now enhance our capability to be able to support countries as we move and want to move Africa, many of the countries to middle-income countries. That requires a different shift from when ACBF was started. Now we have gathered a lot of think tanks, policy makers here in Abidjan, I'd like to get from you what your key takeaways will be from here, and how you like the conversations here to help drive policy making on the continent. One of the things that is emerging, even the conversation in the room, a number of ministers who are even on the panel are saying they are facing a challenge first to have the capacity to prepare programs that can meet the criteria for climate adaptation and mitigation, because one of the biggest challenges facing the continent is to be able to adapt, leave alone the mitigation effects, and so having that capacity to meet the dual challenges is not easy, and of course not knowing that some of them have clearly said that even the so-called available financing globally, they are not able to access it because it's so complex, and so here they are also peer supporting each other to understand how do you really be able to access this financing, what kind of tools do you need to put in place, and in fact this is also evidence from when you see what has been promised by the developed world, 100 billion annually to be able to meet with climate adaptation, hardly 20 billion has been dispersed or even contributed. One of the reasons is capacity, but of course unwillingness on those part of the countries, but I don't think Africa can sit here and just mourn about the lack of federal fees or developed countries giving, because climate change is not going to wait. Africa can go ahead and look at options that are available to mitigate this, although climate change, Africa has only contributed the maximum only four percent of the impact of what climate is, and yet Africa in fact in terms of impact is getting bigger impact than the rest of the world, and so Africa has to start looking at how to put up the best foot forward to survive in the wake of the circumstances that face Africa.

The Chair of the African Capacity Building Foundation Executive Board, Erastus Mwencha says the Foundation is tweaking its model to provide more sustainable financing and adapt to dynamics crucial to transform the bulk of African countries to middle-income economies. In a chat with CNBC Africa, he notes Africa needs to do more in preparing for programmes that can meet the criteria for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Mwencha: ACBF model tweak to ensure sustainable financing for Africa

The Chair of the African Capacity Building Foundation Executive Board, Erastus Mwencha says the Foundation is tweaking its model to provide more sustainable financing.

Mwencha: ACBF model tweak to ensure sustainable financing for Africa

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Mwencha: ACBF model tweak to ensure sustainable financing for Africa

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