The African Development Bank (AfDB) has just released a framework for the transition to green growth, which seeks to promote high quality green growth in Africa in the context of significant risks and opportunity for action, including climate change. The framework provides the bank and its operations with a common foundation on the principles and practices of green growth.
Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Concurrently, it is experiencing rapid economic growth, continued widespread poverty and high levels of urbanization. This has prompted the AfDB to develop a strategy that focuses on two overarching objectives to improve the quality of growth across the African continent: inclusive growth, and the transition to green growth.
The strategy argues for a growth path that is not only rapid but which also leads to equality of treatment and opportunity, deep reductions in poverty and large increases in jobs.
The challenge for African economies lies in building prosperity while mitigating near - and long-term risks to development, such as climate change. The strategy clearly identifies the many opportunities of low-carbon, high-resilience growth as opposed to the approach of “grow first, clean up later”.
The strategy aims to improve Africa’s resilience to environmental and socio-economic shocks, manage its natural capital, and minimize pollution. At the same time, the continent’s success will also depend on international efforts to address climate change and other issues of global magnitude.