The Climate Action Africa Forum 24 (CAAF24) marked a pivotal moment in the global effort to address climate change.
Convened in Lagos, Nigeria by the Climate Action Africa (CAA), a leading environmental advocates and stakeholders, CAAF24 galvanized actions and underscored the urgent need for climate action across industries and communities across Africa.
In this brief interview with Techeconomy, Grace Oluchi Mbah, Co-Founder and Executive Director of CAA and co-Convener of CAAF24, she descripted the platform as fertile ground for increased education and awareness on climate change, showcasing innovations and projects driving Africa to a sustainable future, and more actively contribute to the expansion of Africa’s green economy.
Excerpt:
TE: Congratulations on successful hosting of the CAAF’s first edition. For the benefit of those who couldn’t be there, what are the key takeaways?
Oluchi Mbah: Thank you. First, if you were ever in doubt, climate change is very real. But as much as it is real, there is a lot of innovation and investments that are being made to change the narrative. So, for example, we saw the World Bank presentation of how weather resistant classrooms are ensuring that children go to school continuously and resilience and infrastructure are key to Africa’s agenda because you know we’re behind on that front.
Imagine if we had those types of classrooms in the out and in the South where floods are very rampant, they will not have to stop schools, will not have to stop attending hospitals because that type of infrastructure is available and they’ve shown us that it’s possible.
We continue to hear about the millions and billions of dollars that are available for Africa and for the world to tap into in terms of climate finance and we learn that what is important is project preparation.
So, we need to use platforms like this and situations like this to learn what financers are looking for because for us to actually accelerate the efforts that we are doing, we need money.
I like to say passion does not buy coffee; as much as we want to see it happen. It doesn’t happen like that. So, we must continuously improve ourselves, improve our skills, try to see how to develop projects.
I mean we even had in the ‘energy room’ (session) someone who is part of a team that do not, probably give you grants rather they are focused on helping in project preparation.
So, those are the type of partners that we brought to CAAF24 to show you that it is possible for you to learn how to develop your projects, how to access this finance and how to collaborate because we cannot afford to work in silos anymore.
TE: In the last decade the buzz has been around fintech, do you see the same thing being replicated among startups with focus on climate solutions?
Oluchi Mbah: Of course, we continue to see a lot of bright minds. We continue to see a lot of exceptional innovators. I mean for our deal room, over 830 people even just registered.
Not all of them got to submit their applications but we could even just read through that backend and see the type of solutions that are proposing to say, okay, this is what we want to do for our communities.
So, we’re definitely sure that in the next couple of years we’re going to see innovations that are actually transforming communities and becoming mainstream as well.
TE: Thanks for speaking to us and kudos to the team for CAAF24
Oluchi Mbah: Thanks to Techeconomy for partnering with us.
