Akinwumi A. Adesina said that the Bank would commit at least $25 billion towards climate finance.
Speaking at a plenary in the presence of world leaders, including President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, and French President Emmanuel Macron, Adesina also announced the AfDB is on course to achieve its target of allocating 40 percent of its funding to climate finance by 2020, a year ahead.
The bank’s commitment on the target, the highest among all multilateral development banks, has progressed steadily from 9 percent in 2016 to 28 percent in 2017 and 32 percent in 2018.
Considering Africa’s high vulnerability despite contributing the least to climate change, the African Development Bank has successfully raised its adaptation finance from less than 30 percent of total climate finance to parity with mitigation in 2018.
The African Development Bank will continue this trend into the future, it said.