Challenges
Just as many other countries, Rwanda, on the African continent, continue to suffer from the negative effects of climate change such as landslides and droughts. The country and its citizens, with the support of the United Nations (UN), have taken various innovative actions to address these challenges.
In an interview with the UN’s Africa Renewal, Kingsley Ighobor during COP27, highlighted some of the innovative climate actions in Rwanda. Ighobor said Rwanda was very well presented at COP27 and considered it an outstanding COP.
On the first day of the latest COP, President Paul Kagame launched a green investment facility where more than $104 million was realised within 30 minutes. Rwanda’s Minister of Environment, Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, and other senior government officials, as well as members of the country’s civil society, attended and were part of many high-level conversations including at the signing of a Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) facility agreement with Germany.
Rwanda Considered a Pacesetter to climate change effects
From an African or developing countries’ perspective, there seems to be movement on key important agenda items, but the movement is incremental, Ighobor said, but also said they were hopeful that their leaders would come up with the right solutions.
He stressed that Africa was not asking for favours from the Global North despite the continent still suffering from the impact of the industrial revolution, a consequence of the development approaches of the Global North. It is well known that Africa accounts for the lowest share of global greenhouse gas emissions but suffers the brunt of the climate crisis. He called for these issues to be factored into the conversation. Rwanda’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is a mere 0.01%.
The Climate crisis in Rwanda in 2022
Rwanda, a small landlocked country, often referred to as a mountain ridge country, are currently impacted by floods, landslides and various ecosystem challenges, from wetlands to marshlands.
The government already addressed these issues as far back as 2012 when President Kagame established a fund as he recognised that the country does not need to depend on others to solve its problems. Since then, Rwanda has raised more than $247 million for its green fund to respond to these challenges. It is also in the process of securing more land for farming to boost agriculture, productivity and addressing landslides through increased construction of roads and reinforcement of land barriers and land borders.
Performing Excellently at COP27
Rwanda has done commendable work to show its commitment to climate action. The leadership came to COP27 fully prepared with a national plan on how to raise financing. The country was among the first to submit its revised National Determined Contributions (NDC’s), costed at $11 billion and showed that it is committed to raising almost half of that money from internal resources while hoping to mobilise the remainder from international financing sources.
The country also established a number of facilities to tackle climate challenges and played a very active role in the work of the African Group of Negotiators on climate change.
Rwanda is a hub of ideas in Africa and the UN made it clear that it was very excited to work with the government and people, including the youth. Ighobor said that this should lead investors to Rwanda. “It is your prototype ground. You come here, you test, and you see it works well and you can scale up.”
In multiple ways, credit was given to the political leadership of Rwanda, including the President, the Minister of the Environment and the leaders of other key institutions for its whole-of-government approach to addressing climate change issues and the way it matches words with action.
With UN support, the country developed its NDC’s, showing the direction the government and the people want to go. It set up the Green Climate Fund as well as other climate change-related facilities have been established. The government also retooled the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework to enable the UN system to respond more effectively. At the levels of policy, planning, organisation and structure, the UN system in Rwanda has been very supportive.
Rwanda’s Youth
Young people in Rwanda are famous for their tech savvy. In terms of climate action, there are many innovative actions by Rwandan youths. Youth Connekt Africa, for example, is a major platform bringing young people together. Started by the President of Rwanda in 2012, Youth Connekt Africa in commemorated its fifth year in 2022 and is now present in 31 countries, with Nigeria being the latest to join the group.
This is a hugely successful platform where African youths attend incubation and master classes and training, even providing some financing. A national innovation fund was created which matches good ideas with financing.
There is a plethora of brilliant and innovative ideas by young Rwandans on how to systematise and simplify agricultural equipment for people to use on farms; how you support farmers by creating aggregator platforms; to provide information on weather patterns to farmers and how you show them access to markets so they can compare experiences on prices using their mobile phones.
Rwanda is very strong on Environmental Social Governance (ESG) guidelines and is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa. When considering all over standards of government effectiveness across the board, such as response to service delivery, trust in government, security, the rule of law, etc, independent studies score Rwanda between the upper 80’s and the 90’s out of 100.
Ighobor finally said that they hoped to accelerate discussions on the issues of loss and damage and reach a beneficial conclusion for Africa. Other issues raised were financing, technology transfer and just energy transition. Double the amount for adaptation is needed to scale up on adaptation financing rather than mitigation to enable national development. He also called for discussions regarding intellectual property rights and giving franchises to African institutions to be able to adopt and adapt technologies to boost climate resilience.
The Global North mostly caused climate challenges and will need to meet its obligations and provide financing for Africa to achieve energy security – Kingsley Ighobor during COP27
