Climate change efforts in Africa need financing and the G7 can help
Climate change continues to ravage Africa, which is enduring extreme weather and natural disasters on an unprecedented scale. My own country, Kenya, has just emerged from its longest drought on record, only to suffer devastating floods, which have killed 289 people and affected more than 800,000. Meanwhile, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe recently experienced a severe drought that exposed millions of people to hunger, and the Sahel region was hit by a debilitating heatwave, resulting in more than 100 deaths in Mali.
Climate change increasingly drives droughts in Africa, jeopardizing water supplies. It ruins lives and livelihoods, cripples food production and destroys homes and infrastructure. It affects migration patterns and exacerbates conflicts, forcing entire populations to flee in search of alternative livelihoods for survival.
Making matters worse, African countries pay interest rates up to eight times higher than those attached to the typical World Bank loan, leaving them even less equipped to deal with climate-related challenges. This disparity reflects an international financial system that was established in 1945, when most African countries did not yet exist, and which remains tilted in favour of wealthy countries. Many African nations are trapped in a perpetual cycle of debt, with little or no fiscal space for development and investments in climate-change mitigation or adaptation.
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