The Government of Flanders this year has committed 1 million euros to the Africa Climate Change Fund (ACCF) to support five projects in three African countries - Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa.

In Malawi, the project will contribute to “demonstration of an innovative results-based finance model for adaptation to climate change”. It will be implemented by the Climate Change and Green Growth Department of the African Development Bank. 

In Mozambique, the grant will support two projects on “unlocking blended finance and youth/women entrepreneurs for resilient blue-green (or coastal) growth in Mozambique” and promoting “syntrophic agriculture as a strategy to foster resilience, climate adaptation and recovery of vulnerable communities living in degraded marine and costal ecosystems in Zambezia”. These projects will be implemented by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Institute of International Economic Cooperation.

In South Africa, the projects seek to support ecosystem-based adaptation and financing for livestock farmers within South Africa’s threatened grassland as well as innovative access modality es for the Green Climate Fund; They will be executed by the Birdlife South Africa and South South North.

Simon Calcoen, Policy Officer at the Flanders Department of Foreign Affairs, said “the Government of Flanders looks forward to continue their cooperation on climate change adaptation in Africa”. The commitments were made in May 2019.

The new contribution follows an initial grant of two millions euros to the ACCF in November 2016 by the Flanders government, bringing the total contribution to the ACCF to 11.4 million euros, enabling its conversion to a multi-donor trust fund in early 2017. Since then, the ACCF has supported African countries in their process to transition towards climate resilient and low-carbon development through a portfolio of eight on-going projects.

It will enable the ACCF to extend its portfolio and geographic coverage and increase its benefits to the population across the African continent. The renewal of the Flanders’ contribution to the ACCF is an acknowledgment of the impact of ACCF’s work which contributes to achieving the African Development Bank’s goal to triple its climate financing to reach US$ 5 billion annually by 2020, as well as the objectives set out in the Bank’s Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) 2016-2020 and in the 2013-2022 Strategy.

Moving forward, the ACCF aims to secure new funding contributions and scale up its climate finance support to enable African countries to achieve the ambitious objectives set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions.