Our Correspondent
We all know that climate change is an existential issue. And for your to tackle an existential issue like climate change, you would require financing. Nothing happened if you don’t have the finance. And that finance has to be available in an accessible manner that enable both government and eco-friendly businesses to invest into financing and the critical infrastructure for businesses required to enable Nigeria’s response to the challenges of climate change.
So, why we are here is because we have developed the guide for accessing climate finance. It highlights the number of funds that is available for both government and eco-friendly businesses to access. However, like in everything, there are conditions that are attached to all of that. So billions of dollars are available in investible funds for both government and eco-friendly businesses
But they have to meet certain criteria to be able to unlock those funds. So the key word us unlocking access to climate finance. And the tool to doing that is this guide to accessing climate finance that we have developed and that will be accessible to sib-national government as State government, eco-friendly businesses that would work to transform our response. So the key point is how Nigeria is responding to the challenges of climate change.
We are all aware in recent time, the challenges around coastal flooding. Even inland flooding. We have to build infrastructure and resilient infrastructure yo respond to that. And to do that, we need climate finance. The opportunity is immense. We also need to invest in how we respond to issues around energy, waste management and all of those things that will contribute to Nigeria’s response to the challenges of desertification, flooding, deforestation and all of those things. Sometimes, we don’t make connections with it. But those are challenges of climate finance.
This is a high level and leveraging on the opportunities of the national economic summit. The tool will be accessible to state governments, businesses via our online portal. And the programme, Partnership for Agile Governance and Climate Engagement, PACE, is available to provide technical assistance that will enable state government to assess themselves, develop a response to those assessment where they identify the challenges.
So assessment enable you to identify the challenges. Understand the conditionality attached to the funds. There are about 18 investible funds globally and even within Nigeria. Same with eco-friendly businesses. We will roll out. This is essentially a high level launch that attracts a couple of people, Ministers, governors, commissioners and provide them with a first hand opportunity to interact with the guide. After that it will be rolled out
Dr. Chinedu Eze, Green PFM Advisor, PACE
If you know most government of Nigeria, as you know this guide is not only for government. It is both fir private sector and government. If you look at the resources available to all government in Nigeria not just in Nigeria, you would observe that the resources are limited. They are not enough and sufficient for government to do everything they wish to do.
This is a way of bringing additional resources to fund budget of state government. And then in the same way, it is equally bringing additional resources to help private sector eco-friendly businesses to actually perform and implement those things that they intend to achieve.
If you look at most of the activities that needs to happen, it is more at the sib-national level. It is more at the state government level. The Federal government is big. They are equally doing their own. But the challenges are more at the states government levels. Because we have the NCCC, Federal Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Finance.
We have key MDAs that are with the capacity with the institutional ability to access and unlock funds by the Federal government. But when you go to sub-national at state level, that is where we have the major challenges. And that is why this guide is properly made for the state government.
Part of the guide, we have what we call the assessment part of it. The document that will help us to look at what currently exist at the state government level. And that readiness assessment toolkits help a state government to look at the institutional framework whether the institution will help them unlock finances that exist at the State government level. It will look at the legal regulatory framework.
It will look at the capacity of the people that are currently working in the state. It will look at the ability of the state government to conceive and package projects that will qualify for climate finance. And then, it will equally look at the existing public financial management system looking at the entire process of utilisation of resources, entire process of planning, process of policy making and the entire process if implementation of the budget and reporting by ensuring that the resources are in line and used for the actual purpose.
Another thing it is going to look at is the engagement mechanism and ability to work effectively with the citizens, work with various interests groups within states to avoid conflicts and ensure everybody is participating in the entire process.
