Natural Capital Mainstreaming

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The Natural Capital for African Development Finance (NC4-ADF) programme is a joint initiative between the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP) and WWF (as lead Implementing Partner), to mainstream natural capital approaches in African development finance. The programme comprises four key pillars of work:

Pillar 1:
Apply natural capital approaches to African infrastructure finance projects.

This involves the application of natural capital approaches to prioritized infrastructure projects in selected AfDB Regional Member Countries (Tanzania and Mozambique) to inform investment decisions and infrastructure project finance in Africa.

Laurent Some: Director of Policy and Partnership WWF Africa: This is a unique opportunity for Central African countries to position themselves in the national, regional and international commodity markets

Pillar 2:
Build consensus for natural capital approaches among multilateral development banks (MDBs) and related partners.

Under this pillar, AfDB works with other multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the European Investment Bank (EIB), to advance a common vision and sharing best practices for mainstreaming natural capital in the development finance architecture.

Donald Kaberuka, President, African Development Bank receives the WWF Leader for a Living Planet award presented by Marco Lambertini, WWF Director General at the 2015 AfDB Annual Meetings in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Looking on is Hawa Sow, WWF Africa Institutional Partnerships Lead.

Pillar 3:
Integrate natural capital practices in African sovereign credit ratings.

This involves integrating green growth and natural capital considerations in sovereign risk and credit ratings of AfDB Regional Member Countries, in partnership with credit rating agencies.

Over the next three years, WWF will strengthen existing relationships, continue to engage African governments and embassies so that Chinese investments in environmentally sensitive sectors (timber, infrastructure and mining) are encouraged to fully integrate sustainability principles while also promoting job creation and income growth

Pillar 4:
Build capacity for natural capital accounting and assessment in Africa.

Through the AfDB Natural Capital Academy, the program will build capacity for incorporating natural capital approaches in development planning and infrastructure finance.

Funding for this two-year (2021-2022) NC4-ADF program is from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the MAVA Foundation for Nature. Project implementation is led by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) with oversight by a Joint Implementation Committee (JIC) co-chaired by AfDB and GGKP. The JIC further includes members representation from WWF, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and. MAVA Economics for Nature (E4N), among others.

NC4-AFD website and knowledge base