The African Climate Dialogues are a series of 5 online sessions co-hosted by faith groups and other civil society organisations from Africa and Europe.

This is an initiative that leads up to the UN Climate Conference (COP 27) scheduled to take place from November 7-18, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. This particular Dialogue will focus on “Climate Finance” in the context of climate action. For more information about the Initiative follow this link {HERE}.

Online event, 31st August 2022, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM CEST/3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Nairobi

Zoom registration link {HERE}

Languages: English with French, Portuguese & Spanish (optional) Interpretation

More event details and programme {HERE}

Climate Finance

Current climate finance pledges do not come close to meeting estimated needs, mobilisation of funds lags far behind pledges, funds that are mobilised often come in inappropriate forms (loans rather than grants), and less than half of allocated financing is actually disbursed. Many developing countries, particularly in Africa, will need significant financing to meet their mitigation and adaptation goals, but available resources are not reaching the most vulnerable countries and communities where they are most needed. The purpose of this session is to explore the importance of climate finance for Africa, highlighting the need to meet existing goals, the role of debt, and access to financing.

Background on Climate Finance

There is very limited awareness and knowledge about the availability of climate finance particularly in developing countries, and the available finance is not reaching the most vulnerable countries/communities where it is needed the most. Secondly, there is a pronounced need for climate finance in Africa: more resources must be made available. Finally, climate finance must be understood within the wider financial context in Africa. This includes things like illicit financial flows, sovereign debt, fiscal stress as a result of COVID-19, and governance challenges. None of these can be properly understood apart from the history of colonization. The aim of this session is to explore the meaning of climate finance, highlighting the imbalance in the disbursement of climate finance vs development finance (the current finance architecture promoting debt through loans) as well as the increasing need for access to climate finance. We will also highlight the overall global climate finance pledge that's not been met and propose important sectors or solutions which need financial support.

Objective of The Session

The aim of this virtual online dialogue is to create a space for discussion on the African context and potential solutions to climate finance needs ahead of the United Nations Climate Conference (COP 27). To this end, this session will concentrate on three main areas: Meeting climate finance targets, Addressing the role of debt and Access to finance.

More specifically, this session seeks to:

• Improve knowledge and understanding on the climate finance goal, the challenges of debt and access to climate finance.

• Identify the problem and provide solutions that go beyond a simplistic call for increased political will.

• Provide a clear ethical narrative, consistent with Catholic Social Teaching.

• Achieve real dialogue/exchanges reflecting on the values identifying the messages and way forward.

• Discuss how finance can be transformative for future governance processes, policy and projects.

About the “African Climate Dialogues”

The African Climate Dialogues is an initiative bringing together Church and civil society actors and allies including communities and religious leaders from across the African continent and European organisations to share African realities, personal experiences and perspectives on key topics related to the UN climate conference COP27 scheduled to take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, between 7-18 November 2022.

The African Climate Dialogues will take the form of a series of meetings on key topics throughout July - August- September 2022, when expert participants will be invited to share their perspectives, discuss priorities and put forward solutions. The outputs of these dialogues will be shared ahead of and during COP27 through a joint communiqué, which will support ongoing advocacy with a common voice (composed of inputs from climate realities on the ground, spiritual and technical reflections) directed at governments at the national, regional and international levels.

Inspired by Pope Francis’s call for synodality (journeying together in dialogue), these participatory dialogues will reflect on climate realities of communities on the ground through the lens of Catholic Social Teachings (CST), as well as climate science, distilling concrete policy outputs for COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The following sessions will be part of the dialogues:

• False Solutions, including the protection of the Congo Basin - 19th July

• Food Systems, Agriculture & Adaptation - 10th August

• Climate Finance – 31st August

• Loss and Damage - 8th September

• Migration & Displacement - 15th September

For general inquiries about the dialogues, please contact: Lydia Machaka, Climate Justice and Energy Officer, CIDSE (machaka@cidse.org)