Nairobi, 04 September 2023 (ECA) – During a session at the Annual Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa – CCDA-11 themed: “Navigating the Debt, Development and Environmental Crises: The Role of Sustainable Budgeting”, participants highlighted the key role of planning in addressing sustainable development challenges.
Sustainable budgeting is a decision-making tool that enables decision-makers to achieve their goals by simultaneously identifying opportunities to boost economies and climates. According to Brian O’Callaghan, Senior Policy Advisor at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and moderator of this session, this could leads to an improvement in credit ratings and the cost of financing.
Drawing attention to the fact that Africa’s fiscal space for sustainable budgeting as well as the fund-to-needs ratio are low, O’Callaghan said it is up to Africans to use these funds optimally, prioritizing planning to solve sustainable development problems.
Martha Bekele of the Development Initiatives Group, for her part, called for more equity in the allocation of climate finance, as she finds that the most vulnerable countries receive a disproportionately small share compared to the least vulnerable. The One Campaign report found that these vulnerable countries had incurred excessive debt, and that African countries faced significantly higher interest rates than developed countries.
To remedy this, the Development Initiatives Group says it is necessary to study the possibility of generating tax revenues at the national and sub-national levels. In addition, it is crucial to foster collaboration between national policy experts and financial experts within African governments.
The implementation of a simple and comprehensive climate finance approach, combined with the country’s Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), is recommended for consistency and efficiency. Institutional coordination and commitment were also highlighted, as was the call to reassess climate finance allocation and spending, particularly at the sub-national level.
