Africa has major opportunities for green economic development and could become a world-leader in it, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Service Centre for Africa director Dr Matthias Naab highlighted at the Enlit Africa 2024 conference, in Cape Town, on Wednesday. He was launching the UNDP’s 'Africa Green Business and Financing' report, at the International Convention Centre.

Africa contained 30 of the world’s 40 most climate-vulnerable countries, he pointed out. And global climate programmes were falling short of their targets.

“This requires immediate action by us all,” he asserted. “It is imperative that our actions both be bold and decisive.”

The UNDP’s aim was to support private investment in African green projects, he observed.

The report is a key outcome of the UNDP Africa Green Business and Financing Initiative. Currently, three countries are participating in this initiative – Angola, Malawi and Togo. In each of these countries, the key partners in the development of the report were financial institutions, investment banks, development banks, civil society organisations, corporates, and government officials.

The report covered nine sectors, reported UNDP special adviser for the private sector Tomas Sales, in his presentation. These were water, waste, nature-based solutions (NBS), technology, energy, agriculture, ecotourism, finance, and infrastructure.

The report defined green business as businesses that incorporated fundamental considerations and prioritisations of the impact of their operations on environmental issues, in their policies, plans and operations. “Actually, there’s a lot of things being done in Africa, with green business,” he noted. “Private capital investment is critical to get projects going.”

The report included case studies in eight sectors. These were water, waste management, NBS, technology and next-generation solutions (also known as digital green solutions), renewable energy, agriculture and food, ecotourism, and mobility.

Although each country is distinct and different, the report has six generic recommendations. These are – establish dedicated green investment pathways; create an African urban green business and finance platform; create a nature-positive path to recognize nature as an asset class; enhance green value chains and corridors; encourage multilateral development banks to do more to reduce investment risk in Africa; and, encourage the development of a green culture in Africa, create an Africa Green Business Institute (or a network of such institutes).

“It’s our experience that we need to bring all the stakeholders together,” said Sales. This had to include the private sector, from small, micro and medium enterprises, all the way up to giant corporations. This was difficult, but it could be done.