The state of African forests in a changing climate : climate finance or simple political will?

Abstract

Every year, the African Union (AU) and its member states go to the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) with strong positions on climate justice to remind developed countries to honour their pledges on climate finance. However, apart from the lack of climate financing, there are many other challenges such as poor governance, institutional weaknesses and corruption that African nations face to better cope with climate change. This policy brief argues that these limitations, rather than sufficient availability of climate funding, are at the root of Africa’s problems facing climate change. With their vast forests and water resources, African countries could offer their people better quality of life, with or without external aid. Focusing on the forestry sector, this policy brief identifies five key challenges to address in order to ensure sustainable management of Africa’s forests and improve the living conditions of its population: 1) harmonisation of national and regional forest policies; 2) incorporation of stronger anticorruption measures in these forest policies; 3) establishment of robust communication systems at the regional level to strengthen the implementation of forest policies; 4) setting up strong institutional structures to define ambitious and integrated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and translate them into tangible investment programmes and project pipelines; and 5) identification and resolution of problems that prevent climate financing from really making a difference on the ground. The forestry sector alone has the potential to allow Sub-Saharan Africans to adapt and mitigate climate change.