Africa Knowledge Exchange: Four Days of Learning on 15 Years of Impact

“This is an important meeting. They are going to take stock, look at what works,” said Niale Kaba, Minister of Planning and Development of Côte d'Ivoire, after the opening ceremony of the ‘Africa Knowledge Exchange: Lessons on 15 years of Impact’ event, held in Abidjan in March 2023. The Climate Investment Funds, the government of Côte d’Ivoire, and the African Development Bank (AfDB) co-hosted this four-day learning dialogue amongst African countries. 

Jean-Luc Assi, Minister of Environment of Côte d’Ivoire, Mafalda Duarte, CIF’s CEO, and Kevin Kariuki, AfDB’s Vice-President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, launched the event with participants from 16 African governments, civil society organizations, multilateral development banks, and Indigenous and local communities. “Today, we congratulate the CIF for 15 years of operation and are delighted to have this opportunity to reflect on and celebrate our great partnership,” said Kevin Kariuki. He went on to highlight the major climate adaptation challenges faced by the continent, in a context where “Africa accounts for only 3% of global climate finance.” 

Mafalda Duarte also discussed the urgency of bringing more climate finance to Africa, notably for nature-based solutions programs, and drew applause from the audience when saying: “We will win this climate fight in developing countries.” She also underscored CIF’s role as a learning laboratory for climate finance, with a strong focus on South-South dialogue. “We have to work together, from an investment perspective, but also by coming together and learning from each other. That has been a key mandate of the CIF since its inception in 2008.”  

Knowledge Fair 

After officially opening the event, Jean-Luc Assi homed in on the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, and outlined CIF’s major contribution to a national strategy aimed at reaching 20% forest cover by 2030. The Minister went on to inaugurate a knowledge fair where seven African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Niger, and Zambia), CIF and AfDB showcased projects and results obtained through joint work on sustainable forests (Forest Investment Program - FIP), climate resilience (Pilot Program for Climate Resilience - PPCR) and with Indigenous People and local communities (Dedicated Grant Mechanism - DGM). These same three themes were highlighted throughout the four-day event, with a forward look to Nature, People & Climate (NPC)Nature, People & Climate (NPC), CIF’s newly launched nature-based solutions investment program.  

Women Climate Leadership 

Day 2 of the event was spent away from Abidjan, near the town of Dimbokro, to meet with Malebi Association, a women-led group promoting agroforestry on degraded land. This was a unique opportunity for participants from all over Africa to learn from the implementation of a FIP reforestation project with strong gender empowerment benefits. 

On March 8, participants celebrated International Women’s Day, with a powerful speech on women climate leadership by Mafalda Duarte and a discussion on transformational climate leadership with notably Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet, Founder of REFACOF, UN Champion of the Earth, and Wangari Maathai Forest Champion. During this session, the conceptual framework for transformational change that underlies CIF’s mission was introduced with examples from CIF’s portfolio. Presented publicly for the first time in Abidjan, CIF’s Women Climate Leadership framework will be used to structure approaches to increase women’s empowerment around the world, giving them access to credit, growing their participation in capacity building for developing climate-smart agriculture, improving land tenure, and transforming gender norms.  

Just Transitions 

That same day, representatives from AfDB, CIF, Ghana and Uganda held a panel discussion on both the complexities and the vast potential for just transition implementation in Africa.  Speakers explained that, while the transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient society is expected to create economic opportunities and enhance social development, it will also inevitably generate risks and losses. Audience members participated actively in the discussion on ensuring that risks are mitigated, and opportunities are equitably distributed so that all may benefit. 

Indigenous Peoples 

The event provided opportunities for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), NGOs and MDBs to discuss CIF’s Dedicated Grant Mechanism (DGM). The governance of the DGM is innovative in that it is led by IPLCs at every level. These groups are both leaders and beneficiaries of DGM activities, ensuring funding support is demand-driven and attuned to local interests to affect change from the ground up for the most vulnerable. Over $70 million has thus far been invested in 12 countries to support community-led, context-specific sub-grants that draw on local expertise to advance sustainable forest stewardship. The value, passion, and pride that IPLC leaders place in the DGM clearly shined through in their interventions.   

Development Impacts 

The event also featured a preview of an independent evaluation of the development impacts of CIF's entire portfolio. The evaluation was discussed during a workshop that provided an overview of exciting new learnings and approaches that could be implemented by CIF partners to maximize the development impacts of climate finance. Participants from AfDB, Burkina Faso, IFC, Niger and Zambia seized this opportunity to reflect on their own experience with development impacts, such as improved livelihoods, job creation, and gender equality. 

Learning Together 

The AfDB, CIF and World Bank teams also took advantage of the Africa Knowledge Exchange to move forward important climate finance activities with partner countries. For example, the team organized a workshop to collect initial insights for the new independent evaluation of the FIP, a discussion on Monitoring & Reporting, and convened on nature-based solutions and the implementation of new programs.  

A specific focus of the event was to identify lessons that could be most useful for partner countries that will be implementing NPC. Rwanda is one of them, and Climate Finance Analyst Emilie Uwase joined the Africa Knowledge Exchange. “I really just want to know everything that happened with other African countries, what went wrong, what were the challenges? What did you do from the scoping missions, the investment plan, to the monitoring and evaluation? [We want] to have as much knowledge as possible before we venture into this program,” she said. 

Throughout the four days, during both formal and informal parts of the event, partner countries were able to share knowledge, identify useful lessons and create or nurture a deep network of contacts.  

John Mismuko, Permanent Secretary of Zambia’s Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, described his participation with these words: “As a country that benefited from CIF funding, we feel duty bound to share our experiences with many other members of the international community (…). But we are also here to learn from others so that we can also benefit.”  

Joining from Gabon, IMF resident representative Gomez Agou concluded: “CIF has been around for many years, and [this event] is a reminder that there is a lot of institutional knowledge about how to tackle the issue of climate in general, but also climate finance in developing countries. Because CIF has been helping a lot, including in the basin of Congo. We have some of our country members who have benefited from that. So that knowledge I think will be critical.” 

CIF is planning to replicate this successful Knowledge Exchange format in Latin America & The Caribbean and Asia, ensuring all FIP, PPCR, and NPC countries have the opportunity to share and learn lessons with partners.