It is necessary to develop investments in Africa to reduce carbon emissions, the executive vice president for intra-African trade and export development at the African Export-Import Bank, Kanayo Awani said at a panel discussion at the COP29 Climate Platform on Business, Investment, and Philanthropy, Trend reports.
“Today I will be speaking in the context of Africa, or as we say, global Africa. And although you think of me as a financier and a spokesperson for Afreximbank, we are not just about financing. Financing is usually not a problem, but there are always other factors that hinder direct investment in the continent,” she said.
According to her, direct investment in Africa (ADI) in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is an approach that needs to be developed to combat climate change.
“We are not only facilitating investment—we are facilitating it, advocating for it, and also financing it. We do a lot of capacity building to strengthen the position of countries to make them more attractive to investors. The way we do that is through partnerships. We are very partnership-oriented,” Awani added.
She noted that the African Union has also supported the establishment of a Pan-African Trade and Investment Agency. This agency looks at Africa and global Africa on a larger scale rather than as a multitude of fragmented countries. The Pan African Trade and Investment Agency should give the continent a unified voice to improve Africa's image and attract investment, including investment within the continent itself.
“AfCFTA, in our view, is in line with the African Union's agenda, which focuses on adaptation, investment, and climate resilience. The reason for this is obvious. This is how the EU sets its priorities, and this is how we position Afreximbank to support investments in adaptation. AfCFTA gives us the best chance to promote the trade and investment needed to tackle carbon emissions,” she added.
To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) started in Baku on November 11. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system.
A total of 198 countries are Parties to the Convention. Unless the parties decide otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.
The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.
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