Statement of the AEF Women Leaders Network

The Africa-Europe Foundation’s (AEF) Women Leaders’ Network (WLN) provides a platform for eminent and strong-minded women to debate some of the world’s greatest challenges and to advocate for joint actions by Africa and Europe. We are convinced that by strengthening co-operation between our two continents, we can create momentum for climate positive growth, aligned with the outcome of the Africa Climate Summit Nairobi Declaration. We focus on tasks which require urgent attention and offer a frank assessment of what needs to be done to achieve progress for our mutual benefits as partners. Our discussions draw from the diverse roles played by WLN members, and build on remarkable work done by the membership, in fields of multilateralism, finance, climate justice, and local action. We recognise there are no simple solutions to the problems we face, but rather a mix of actions, both short and longer term. At this time, when war and conflict are opening up serious divisions between nations, it is urgent that we maintain our focus on a unified women leaders’ climate movement to tackle this existential crisis.

We face an unprecedented combination of crises – climate, food, energy, and debt – now magnified many-fold by conflicts in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. People, communities, nations and entire regions are under ever-greater stress. Only working together in close partnership, can we create the radical collaboration from which solidarity will flourish and the foundations of peace, security, development and a climate-resilient future be built.

The first Global Stocktake is a wake-up call to meet the climate challenge with far greater ambition. COP28 will hear from all nations on their stocktake of progress in meeting promises for climate action. It is clear from the IPCC Global Stocktake report that we are greatly offtrack, and at risk of breaching our collective commitment to keeping warming below 2°C and in line with the 1.5°C aspirations for a safe future. African countries will suffer most greatly from this slippage in commitments and action. We could see that the promised NDCs and their current revisions were never going to be sufficient, but even these paper promises have been too far a stretch for most countries to turn into action.

There are multiple examples where simple measures can make a huge difference for millions of women and children, such as clean cooking solutions to provide them with practical ways of delivering meals for their family and improving global health. Nearly 1 billion people still lack access to modern cooking solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, and almost 500,000 Africans die prematurely due to household air pollution every year. Considering the annual toll on human health, forests, climate and local economies, clean cooking solutions should be central to national climate, health and development strategies.

The UN’s Adaptation Gap report just out shows yet again how far adrift we are from meeting the finance needs of the most vulnerable parts of the world. The gap is growing and is currently estimated globally at US$387 billion per year. Over the last twelve months, everyone has seen the apocalyptic visions from forest fires, devastating floods, and storms, such as the catastrophic deaths and damage in Libya’s city of Derna. There is only so much “resilience building” which can be done to cope with such powerful forces.

Agreement seems to have been struck in early November at ways to make the Loss and Damage Fund operational and financed. Having been agreed at last year’s COP in Sharm el-Sheikh, questions remain about how it will be financed. The World Bank has been agreed as the institution to manage this fund for the first 4-year period, despite serious reservations from many developing countries, who point to its operations being expensive, slow, and under Western control with all its associated ideological baggage. A committee has been proposed to oversee the operationalisation of the fund post-COP28, made up of a majority of developing nations. It is not clear yet how the fund will be filled, and from which sources. It is difficult to see it raising sufficient funds if it remains entirely voluntary, and there are sound arguments for all significant emitters, historic and present, to make contributions. Tapping into global taxation mechanisms would be a sound long term means to raise funds, at less risk from domestic political uncertainties.

Throughout the last two years, WLN has been concerned by the very serious problems faced by many African countries in accessing affordable finance and investment funds, as well as mobilising domestic capital to deal with rising debt distress, huge increases in interest rates and the impossible burden of debt servicing. Massive increases in funding are also urgently needed from both public and private sectors to deliver infrastructure, energy, and water access, across Africa, and address an acceleration of climate and biodiversity impacts. There is a huge difference in borrowing costs faced by African countries in comparison with their European peers, with up to 10-point differences in interest rates, while access to capital is also drying up as investors seek safe havens. African countries themselves need to increase domestic resource mobilisation by broadening fiscal measures and curbing illicit financial flows.