The Ministry of Green Economy and Environment has called on the developed world and multilateral climate financing institutions to be timely and predictable when financing climate change programmes.
Permanent Secretary in Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, John Msimuko, said timely and predictable financial flows to Zambia and other African countries will enable attainment of nationally determined contribution (NDC) commitments.
According to a press statement issued to the media today by Ministry of Green Economy and Environment Senior Communications Officer, Chibaula Silwamba, Mr Msimuko was speaking at the ongoing Africa Knowledge Exchange event hosted by the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
He said climate change has had a negative impact on Zambia’s development goals and government’s efforts to address the challenges.
“We have enshrined our climate response into high level national documents such as the national policy on climate change and the eighth national development plan which has a dedicated development pillar focusing on environmental sustainability,” Mr Msimuko said.
Mr Msimuko also informed the meeting that Zambia is developing a national green growth strategy which is expected to steer the country to a fully-fledged low carbon and socially inclusive green economy within the next few years.
Zambia is the leading beneficiary in the CIF’s recently launched Nature, People and Climate (NPC) programme through a country specific award and a regional project which includes Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania.
Over the past 10 years, the CIFs has provided more than US$90 million to the government of Zambia to implement projects in adaptation and resilience as well as technical assistance in the development of investment plans for CIF’s Forest Investment Programme (FIP) and the Scaling Renewable Energy Programme (SREP).
