By PRINCE MABUMA
GOVERNMENT has called for timely and predictable financial flows to Zambia and other African countries to enable attainment of Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments.
Speaking at the ongoing Africa Knowledge Exchange event hosted by the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) in Abidjan, Cote d’ Ivoire, Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, Permanent Secretary John Msimuko called for more predictable climate financing from the developed world and multilateral climate financing institutions such as CIF and African Development Bank (AfDB) to address the vulnerability among African economies to climatic shocks.
Mr Musimuko highlighted the negative impacts of climate shocks on Zambia’s development goals and Government’s efforts to address the challenge.
This is according to a statement issued by Ministry of Green Economy and Environment Senior Communications Officer, Chibaula Silwamba.
“We have enshrined our climate response into high-level national documents such as the National Policy on Climate Change and the Eighth National Development Plan which has a dedicated development pillar focusing on Environmental Sustainability,” Mr Msimuko said.
He informed the meeting that in addition to these high-level policy documents, a National Green Growth Strategy was being developed to steer the country to a fully-fledged low carbon and socially inclusive green economy within the next few years.
Zambia is the leading beneficiary in the CIF’s recently launched Nature, People and Climate programme through a country specific award and a regional project which includes Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania.
Over the past 10 years, the CIFs has provided more than US$90 million to the Government of Zambia to implement projects in adaptation and resilience as well as technical assistance in the development of investment plans for CIF’s Forest Investment Programme and the Scaling Renewable Energy Programme.
