The Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI) has identified poor planning, misaligned stakeholder interests, lack of adequate coordination across government, and policy incoherence as underlying challenges preventing policymakers across government from attracting or accessing pools of climate finance.
Nigeria Focal Person, APRI, Chibuikem Agbaegbu, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja during a stakeholders’ dialogue on mainstreaming climate action into Nigeria’s development plan. He said the development was observed after engaging with senior policymakers across government.
Agbaegbu noted: “Recent APRI engagements with senior policymakers across government indicate significant levels of frustration at their inability to attract or access pools of climate finance, largely due to these challenges.”
He stressed the need for governments to demonstrate concrete efforts in mainstreaming climate to attract the level of climate finance and investments required to support their climate ambitions.
This, he noted, includes clear policy direction and alignment, effective stakeholder coordination and collaboration, as well as an increasingly improved enabling environment for climate investments.
“The global realities of climate change mean that the landscape for finance and global geopolitics is changing significantly.
“As climate and ESG considerations become increasingly important in accessing finance from the global North, plans that do not have climate action in view are finding it more difficult to attract financing.
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“With the growing need to attract climate finance for Nigeria’s sustainable development and climate resilience, we need to demonstrate across sectors that we are making intentional efforts to mainstream climate into our economic development plans.
“In order to do this, we need to reflect internally and evaluate actionable pathways for Nigeria’s low net emissions growth across sectors—pathways that do not compromise our development priorities and that also incorporate resilience in the realities of foreseeable climate impacts,” he added.
According to Agbaegbu, the institute’s research briefs are part of several efforts by APRI to provide evidence-based insights to inform the government and key stakeholders on ways to improve policy coherence between Nigeria’s sectoral policies and initiatives and its climate policies and initiatives.