The African Development Bank and the Green Growth Knowledge Platform have been awarded a two-year, $273,439 grant from the MAVA Foundation to mainstream natural capital in development finance in Africa.
MAVA, a philanthropic foundation, promotes the conservation of biodiversity and advocates sustainable economies in the Mediterranean, West Africa, and Switzerland.
The grant will support activities to develop a business case for natural capital among multilateral development banks, scale up the application of natural capital in infrastructure finance, integrate green growth and natural capital in African sovereign credit ratings, and build the capacity for the adoption of natural capital approaches in decision-making through a Natural Capital Academy.
According to AfDB, natural capital is the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, such as plants, animals, air, water, soils, and minerals that combine to provide benefits to people and support life.
Manager of the Policy Analysis Division in the African Natural Resources Centre of AfDB, Vanessa Ushie, noted, “The natural capital mainstreaming initiative offers a strategic opportunity for the AfDB to embed nature and natural capital at the heart of decision-making on development planning, investments, and infrastructure finance in Africa.”
A statement by AfDB added that the vision for the grant was to “crowd-in” additional resources to complement existing interventions on natural capital. The bank and GGKP are expected to jointly administer the grant and coordinate implementation of project activities under an existing bilateral partnership and established technical cooperation.
“For Africa to build back better after COVID-19, new investment models and practices that promote a better use of the values provided by natural capital will be critical to engendering a green recovery,” Ushie added.
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