Local and regional governments call to localize Climate Finance in Agadir

12.09.2017

The Climate Chance World Summit is taking place from the 11th to the 13th September 2017 in Agadir, Morocco, in partnership with the Souss-Massa Region, the Climate Chance organisation, and our African Section UCLG Africa, which was instrumental in supporting this Summit.

The Climate Chance World Summit is taking place from the 11th to the 13th September 2017 in Agadir, Morocco, in partnership with the Souss-Massa Region, the Climate Chance organisation, and our African Section UCLG Africa, which was instrumental in supporting this Summit.

Gathering around 3,000 participants from local and regional governments as well as representatives of all non-States actors (private sector, civil society organizations, trade unions and more), the Summit seeks to showcase new initiatives from non-State climate actors that are underway across the world. It will also be an opportunity to open up the debate on how non-State actors can bring their own recommendations to the facilitation dialogue in 2018.

Taking advantage of the organisation of the event on the African continent, UCLG Africa and its membership facilitated the organization of an “African day” on the 12th of September.

African cities in the face of climate challenges

The UCLG President, Parks Tau, was invited to intervene in the opening of the Plenary session “African cities in the face of climate challenges” on the 12th of September. Speaking on the new global governance architecture and on the complementary implementation of all agendas, including the Paris Agreement, he said: “Our constituency has always advocated for ensuring coherence and building on the interlinkages between all the on-going international agendas. We have always claimed that the climate agenda was not to be understood if not linked with the development and the new urban agendas”. 

In the follow-up session, the “Declaration of Mayors and Presidents of African Regions” was launched and the Secretary General of UCLG Africa presented the key messages of the Declaration in which local and regional leaders of Africa reaffirm their commitment to the Paris Agreement and to existing initiatives of the regional and global networks.  

“We reiterate our call for Climate Finance to be localized. Rapidly urbanizing cities in our continent, in particular, require huge investments to make their infrastructure environmentally sustainable. The time is now! We need direct access to global financing mechanisms in order to build resilient territories in Africa and ensure low-emissions growth. We have no models to follow; we need to avoid the mistakes made by others. Africa needs to define its own model of development and it needs strong local governments to achieve it”, declared Parks Tau, during his intervention.

Climate change is not “just one more issue”. It’s the existential challenge on which everything else depends and it cannot be dealt with in isolation. We will need to link it to all our policies”. 

More information: 

  • Read the Agadir Declaration of non-state actors that elected representatives are invited to sign
  • Read here the Declaration issued at the end of the African Day that African elected representatives are invited to sign
  • Read the full news of the Global Taskforce on Climate Chance