ACRIS IV Concept Note

GRV Global Limited

Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV

2019 The Fourth Africa Climate Resilience and Development Summit ACRIS IV Africa: Towards A Climate Resilient Future 05 - 07 March 2019 Sandton, Johannesburg South Africa

CONCEPT NOTE For Potential Partners July 2018

About this note The objective of this note is to share an initial concept for ACRIS 2019 (also known as “Africa Climate Resilience & Development Summit�) with a network of potential core partners who have an interest in co-developing the concept further as co-organisers, endorsers, and/or financial sponsors. It serves as an invitation to join an exploratory conversation on the scope and scale of this event.

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV

Background Africa is vulnerable to natural variations in climate and human-induced climate change and to the associated extremes like droughts and floods. The continent is projected to be the second hardest hit by climate change impacts, immediately following polar zones (IPCC “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”, 2007). Climate change impacts are already constraining economic development and sometimes reverse years of economic gains. About 90% of natural disasters in sub-Saharan Africa are weather and climate related and affect economic output of countries by 10-20%. Africa's development, climate and resilience agendas are therefore intricately linked. Warming in the range of three to four degrees

Celsius would have disastrous consequences for Africa, including heat extremes affecting the vast majority of the continent’s land areas, heightened risks of extreme drought (particularly in southern Africa), reduced yield and crop failures, and flooding. Adapting to climate variability and change is therefore key to achieving Africa’s development targets, such as the 2030 and 2063 agendas, and international development goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For over 30 years, the international development community has made substantial investments to enhance adaptation to climate variability and change in Africa through investments in research, capacity building and procurement of weather, water and climate technologies to support development of climate services in Africa. Nevertheless, according to the World Bank, most National Meteorological and Hydrological Agencies (NMHAs) in sub-Saharan Africa are still unable to meet current needs for weather and climate information. In many cases, government agencies, private sector businesses, and the general public are still unable to access critical local weather and climate information to make better-informed decisions.

Persistent challenges that limit knowledge on African climate and restrict use of climate information for decision-making have long been identified as inadequate research infrastructure; gaps in Africa’s climate observation systems; lack of adequate data that hinders ability of scientists to assess the past and current states of the climate; and communications gaps between decision-makers, vulnerable communities, development practitioners, and climate scientists. Addressing these challenges and building smart adaptation mechanisms require engagement with a broad grouping of actors from both the public and private sectors.

AUC & GRV Global Cooperation The African Union Commission (AUC) Department of Infrastructure and Energy and The World Bank, in cooperation with GRV Global have cooperated since 2013 in organising ACRIS I and ACRIS II. ACRIS III was attended by representatives from AUC DREA in Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco in February 2018. These were supported by The World Bank, NDF, AfDB, IRENA and UNECA.

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV GRV Global Ltd has received the endorsement of the African Union Commission, Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture to organise the Fourth Africa Climate Resilience Summit (ACRIS IV). The overall objective of ACRIS IV is to strengthen the capacity of African institutions together with the private sector to plan, design and implement investment in Sustainable Development sectors including landscape restoration and sustainable natural resource management in drylands; energy, water and agribusiness, so as to increase their resilience to climate change. ACRIS IV will also focus on Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) Under the auspices of AUC and in collaboration with the World Bank, AfDB, UNECA, and NDF, GRV Global Ltd. will seek wider endorsement and input to this concept note, facilitate the setup of a conference steering committee and aim to mobilize resources for the event planning and hosting and accompanying research. Pending appropriate endorsement from core partners, GRV Global Ltd. will also shoulder secretariat responsibilities.

Rough Scale of Conference Drawing on data from comparable conferences, we are working with a provisional envelope of 200-300 attendees. We assume the attendance of 250 participants, including fully subsidised attendance grants for 65 participants from Africa.

Proposed next steps • • • •

Circulate concept note to potential core partners for feedback, alongside virtual and in-person meetings to secure endorsements and donors, (July – August 2018); Confirm core partners and establish a Conference Steering Committee (September 2018); GRV Global Ltd. commences with further fund raising and event planning (July 2018 onwards); Confirmed window for hosting ACRIS 2019: 05 - 07 March 2019

Required Assistance from AUC 1) Announcement Letter for ACRIS IV on AUC Letterhead.

2) Appointing a focal point from DREA 3) Sending Note Verbales to all African Embassies in Addis Ababa inviting Ministers dealing Environment, Agriculture, Water and Energy or their representatives.

4) The attendance and participation of Commissioner Sacko and her team of concerned experts in ACRIS IV.

I. Overview It is widely believed that over the next 50 years the globe will experience higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent extreme weather events ranging from droughts, flooding and changing heat wave patterns. We need to plan for this today and 3|Page

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV consider now what steps are needed to ensure the regions infrastructures, and the crucial services they provide, can meet the challenges that lie ahead.

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The sectors ACRIS IV will focus on are: Agriculture & Food Security Landscape restoration and sustainable natural resource management Water Energy Transport Infrastructure The challenge of building climate resilient infrastructure is set within a wider challenge of securing sufficient investment to build a low carbon society. Adaptation and long-term sustainability must be built-in from the start as a core consideration. This is vital for new power stations, water and transport infrastructure. It will support transition to a low carbon economy, resilient to climate change, create jobs and benefit the region as a whole.

II. Theme Africa: Towards A Climate Resilient Future

III. Overall Objective The summit aims at introducing to the representatives of the member states of the African Union practical solutions and technical cooperation from the private sector, technology providers, consultancies and service providers. These can help the continent prepare and face up to the challenges of climate change impacts on sustainable development focusing on land issues, transport infrastructure, energy, water, agriculture and food security. Attracting international private investors and development agencies to invest in infrastructure resilient projects in Africa is the main goal.

The Summit will be chaired by Prof. Jamal Saghir, Former Director at the World Bank.

IV.

Participation The main participants are: the African Ministers in charge of Transport Infrastructure, Energy, Water, Agriculture and Food Security. This is in addition to investors, the private sector and development partners; national and regional financial institutions, national experts, 4|Page

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV stakeholders and partners; World Bank, EIB, AfDB, EU, UN agencies; Agencies for investment promotion in Africa; Regional Economic Communities (RECs), a) National, regional and global weather and climate centres such as AGRHYMET and UK Met Office, African specialized institutions; research institutions and universities. The post summit report will be made available electronically to all participants.

V. Venue & Date Sandton, Johannesburg 05 - 07 March 2019

VI. Expected Outcome It is expected that stronger ties and partnerships could be achieved as a result of this interactive summit format, which not only includes short speeches and panel discussions by high level presenters, but also provides numerous networking opportunities. This is expected to help in progressing fundamental science and in piloting novel approaches to deliver climate and weather services and resilient infrastructure.

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Format • • • •

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ACRIS IV will be held over two days with participants having the option to take part in any industry specific sector spanning the two days. The Summit features: Plenary sessions to address major issues and opportunities Presentations: ACRIS IV will be a platform for African states to show their plans of ‘ClimateReady’ and “Investment Ready” Projects. Available projects will be published online and promoted before the summit.

Bilateral meetings between the public and private sector Roundtable pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings Throughout the two days summit there will be one-to-one meetings between African ministers, government officials and the private sector, financial institutions, development partners and international organisations.

Networking opportunities at coffee breaks, lunch times and Gala dinner Exhibition: In parallel to the meetings, industrialists, developers in the fields of technology, R& and development actors will be invited to showcase their companies and organizations, equipment, materials, services, innovation related to industries and services, new knowledge and other practices. The exhibition will enrich the discussions at meetings by helping to inform policy makers and developers on the various possibilities to increase investments in the relative sector.

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV The Agenda would be published separately.

VIII. Thematic Sessions a. Challenges of preparing infrastructure for a changing climate • • • • • • • • • •

Governments’ roles in adapting national infrastructure to the impacts of climate change.

Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility – AFRI-RES Setting out the challenge of adapting to climate change in economic regulatory models.

The role of the planning system for nationally and regionally significant infrastructure in guiding applicants to the impacts of climate change.

Reducing the risk that climate change impacts present to infrastructure interdependencies Increasing the adaptive capacity in infrastructure companies and others (e.g. investors) to enable robust and cost effective climate change adaptation decisions to be made.

Improving the way investment decisions incorporate the impacts of climate change.

Improving access by industry to specific climate information and research through better information sharing, disclosure of risk and evidence.

Monitoring progress in adapting national infrastructure to climate change.

Realising the potential economic opportunities that adapting national infrastructure to climate change presents.

b. Climate Risks and their implications Agriculture & Food Security and Water • • • •

Water supply, treatment and infrastructure Wastewater collection, treatment and disposal Food security, resources, conservation and pollution control.

Farming technologies

Landscape restoration and sustainable natural resource management • • • • • • • • •

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Environmental and spatial planning across economic sectors at the right scale Landscape restoration techniques such as agroforestry and silvopastoralism Integrated landscape management approaches - managing land, water and coastal resources.

Conservation area management Climate smart agriculture Large-scale erosion control programs (ex: fighting erosion in Humbo Mountain - Ethiopia) Natural regeneration - Integrating trees in pastures Implementing effective programs for sound natural resource management Adopting initiatives like Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the BioCarbon Fund Initiatives

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV •

Scaling up knowledge sharing, investments and coalition building

Energy • • • •

Fossil Fuels & Nuclear Generation Renewable Wind Energy Electricity Transmission and Ditribution Fuel Processing & Storage

Transport Infrastructure • • •

Roads Railways Ports

c. Climate resilient investments New investments can be climate resilient by ensuring that an asset is located, designed, built and operated with the current and future climate in mind. Existing infrastructure can be climate resilient by ensuring that maintenance regimes incorporate resilience to the impacts of climate change over an asset's lifetime.

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To achieve this, possible adaptation measures include: Ensuring infrastructure is resilient to potential increases in extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heat waves as well as extreme cold weather.

Ensuring investment decisions take account of changing patterns of consumer demand as a result of climate change.

Building in flexibility so infrastructure assets can be modified in the future without incurring excessive cost.

Ensuring that infrastructure organisations and professionals have the right skills and capacity to implement adaptation measures.

The result will be a more resilient and robust infrastructure network able to cope with projected climate impacts e.g. increased flexibility to cope with uncertainty without massive failure and economic cost.

Achieving more climate resilient infrastructure requires the impacts of climate change to be a key consideration in the way that significant pieces of infrastructure in the energy, Transport Infrastructure and water sectors are planned and commissioned, designed, built and maintained. This includes the design of roads, railways and power lines and management of the supply/ demand balance through water infrastructure.

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Those who need to act alongside Governments, including: Investors in infrastructure, e.g. infrastructure investment funds and pension funds.

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV • • • •

Infrastructure owners, e.g. owners of ports and energy infrastructure.

Infrastructure operators, e.g. organisations that operate airports and those that are contracted to build new infrastructure and run maintenance contracts.

Economic regulators.

Professional bodies such as engineering consultancies

d. The risks of failed or inefficient infrastructure from climate change • • • • •

Infrastructure operators risk economic losses from poorly adapted assets - loss of revenue, damaged or inefficient assets.

Users (other infrastructure sectors, the wider economy and domestic users) are exposed to risks of service failure and dangers.

Investors bear investment risks from economic losses of infrastructure operators and from other investments reliant on infrastructure.

Insurers bear increased risks/losses (both insurance and re-insurance industry) as potential losses (e.g. for infrastructure owners) are reduced through insurance.

Governments may act as a risk bearer, stepping in to assist with losses suffered. Modelling by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has suggested that each dollar spent on climate change adaptation delivers four times its value in terms of potential damage avoided.

e. Potential Opportunities In a low carbon, climate resilient world, investment in climate resilient infrastructure will help enhance the attractiveness of Africa for inward investment, benefitting the member countries, economies, businesses, users and governments. And a stable long-term policy framework for climate change mitigation and adaptation can set the region apart from others left more vulnerable to climate-related risks.

Commercial Opportunities

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Potential business opportunities and risks involved in adapting to anticipated changes in the global climate. Four key sectors: Financial services Infrastructure and construction Professional services and consulting Agriculture and life sciences Adapting infrastructure to climate change impacts presents opportunities if early action is taken and expertise developed. This includes new skills and technologies as well as additional adaptation capacity to enable infrastructure to be adapted such as new engineering practices or IT-based technology.

Investors Investors in infrastructure include banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, investment/development banks and public and private pension funds.

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Infrastructure Owners & Operators Although infrastructure is often owned and operated by the same organisation, this is not always the case both owner and operator will be affected by the impacts of climate change, which may: Have a direct impact on the value of an asset.

Pose a risk to service disruption from weather, affect the ability to meet customers' needs and, where these exist, increase the chance of service related fines.

Lead to higher operating costs, reduced revenues or incur costs for the restoration of services or compensation for service disruption and/or inefficiencies.

Pose a risk to an owner's and/or operator's reputation and their ability to attract future investment or contracts.

Owners and operators of national infrastructure have an important role to play in adapting national infrastructure by: Embedding adaptation throughout their organisation and the organisation's decision making.

Integrating adaptation into the maintenance regimes of existing infrastructure.

Considering how the impacts of climate change may affect new infrastructure and implementing adaptation measures as necessary.

Considering how operational procedures might be affected.

Considering how their supply chains might be affected.

Considering whether their workforce have the right skills and working practices to adapt.

Economic Regulators The economic regulators are well-placed to facilitate adaptation action through existing mandates, in particular the protection of short and long-term customer interest and security of supply. They are also equipped with the appropriate levers - incentives, penalties, standards and regular pricing controls - to deliver these mandates and incentivise adaptation. There is a need to avoid storing up problems for future generations simply by aiming for the lowest bills possible today. Risk based decision making is required to balance both long-term and short-term challenges. Climate change can also present opportunities for regulators and the organisations that they are responsible for. For example, in the water sector, the impacts of climate change can drive innovation in the development of low carbon technology and new approaches to catchment management.

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Insurers & Re-insurers The insurance sector has a significant stake in timely adaptation of national infrastructure.

Increased damage or interruption to insured infrastructure assets could have major cost implications for the insurance industry and affect future premiums.

They should focus on the key issues of climate and weather risks, including storms, floods and other extreme; they also should support research and development of new risk models and applications.

Their expertise on climate issues should be a fundamental part of their risk management and investment policy. This includes advising underwriters and clients on natural catastrophe reinsurance and being involved in research and development projects, to quantify the economic impacts of climate change.

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Insurers have a role in: Working with clients to consider current and future climate resilience as a way of reducing their exposure to weather events.

Investing in, and developing, context specific climate information to help them model climate risk and, where appropriate, share the information with investors, owners and operators to enable further planning and action. Developing systems which monitor the weather and anticipate potential incidents with expected rainfall, wind speeds and gust levels tracked daily.

Encouraging greater disclosure of climate risks and responses by companies to increase understanding and catalyse adaptation action by both insurer and investor in infrastructure.

As investors in their own right, ensuring their own investment portfolios factor in climate resilience.

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Local Authorities and/or Local Enterprise Partnerships Adapting national infrastructure which can be replicated at the sub-regional and local level by local authorities, both have a potential role in encouraging and coordinating action to adapt infrastructure at the sub-national level to boost local resilience to climate change, minimise economic risk and maximise any economic opportunities. Other potential benefits could be: Facilitating localised cross-sector adaptation initiatives leading to more targeted adaptation action.

Action locally may also lead to more action nationally and regionally.

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Engineering Profession Engineers and engineering companies have an important role to play in delivering well-adapted national infrastructure. Climate change presents engineers with a wide range of challenges, such as how: Existing infrastructure may need to change in order to function in a more challenging future climate.

New infrastructure can be designed and built to function under different temperature and rainfall patterns.

Engineering solutions to increase the climate resilience of road infrastructure engineers are considering the impacts of climate change on required specifications for the road network: New road surface specifications, to adapt to higher temperatures.

New drainage standards for new works and renewals to improve drainage allowing for increases in rainfall intensity of 20-30%.

The engineering profession has a role in: Looking for engineering solutions to limit the consequences of failure from severe weather.

Developing new ways of designing and building infrastructure e.g. to plan, design and monitor infrastructure at national and local levels to deliver climate resilience at least cost.

Developing new engineering design practices to increase the resilience of infrastructure assets and networks.

Developing new skills and expertise in adapting infrastructure to create marketable engineering skills and solutions.

Research Community

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV The research community can play an important role in advancing knowledge on the climate change risks to infrastructure. It should focus on nationally-funded research on the challenges of environment change and include an infrastructure theme. It is important that the research community, policy makers and the private sector work together to ensure that these research projects can improve the knowledge on climate risk, turning this into practical action on adapting infrastructure.

African Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES) One of the main focuses of ACRIS IV would the African Climate Resilient Investment Facility, AFRI–RES. This is an Africa-based networked centre of technical competence and excellence, whose overall objective is to strengthen the capacity of African institutions (including national Governments, river basin organizations, regional economic communities and power pools, among others), as well as the private sector (project developers and financiers), to plan, design and implement infrastructure investments that are resilient to climate variability and change in selected sectors, based on an operational framework and value proposition. It is hosted in the African Climate Policy Centre of the ECA and a joint initiative of the ECA, the AfDB, the AUC, the World Bank and the Nordic Development Fund. The Leadership Group of AFRI-RES provides strategic direction to support African priorities based on demand from Member States in areas such as strategic studies, analyses, capacity strengthening and advocacy to support policies for implementation of climate resilient infrastructure in Africa.

Operational framework of AFRI–RES AFRI–RES will provide two types of support classified into two main clusters: upstream support in the form of knowledge, guidelines and good practices to inform sector and project planning; and downstream technical support at the project design and preparation stages.

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AFRI–RES services A central function of AFRI–RES will be to facilitate interaction between policymakers, financiers, project developers, and scientific and engineering experts, to develop and mainstream new practices that deliver climate-resilient infrastructure in Africa.

Importance of AFRI-RES for Africa The infrastructure projects identified by PIDA require investments in the order of US$ 360 billion by 2040, with approximately US$ 70 billion needed by 2020. The World Bank’s 2010 Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic Report estimates that the cost of meeting Africa’s infrastructure deficit is around US$ 93 billion per year (of which about US$30 billion is required for maintenance), with an optimistic investment gap of US$ 31 billion per year.

Climate-proofing these substantial investments is essential, as Africa stands to be impacted the most from the adverse effects of climate change.

Most of the investments will support the construction of long-lived infrastructure (e.g. dams, power stations, irrigation canals and transport corridors) which may be vulnerable to changes in climatic patterns.

The reports of the joint World Bank and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) studies on Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa’s Infrastructure found that:

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV o

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Failure to integrate climate change in the planning and design of power and water infrastructure could entail, in the driest climate scenarios, losses of hydropower revenues of between 5 and 60 per cent (depending on the basin) and increases in consumer expenditure for energy up to three times the corresponding baseline values. In the wettest climate scenarios, business-as-usual infrastructure development could lead to foregone revenues in the range of 15–130 per cent of the baseline.

In irrigation, the largest loss in revenue is in the 10–20 per cent range for most basins. In wet scenarios, the largest foregone gains are in the range of 1–4 per cent, except for the Volta Basin, where they are estimated to be one order of magnitude higher (10 times the baseline level).

In the transport sector, climate change is likely to lead to a shortening of roads’ rehabilitation life cycles, which may entail steep increases in maintenance and periodic rehabilitation costs. In the worst climate scenarios, stress imposed on the roads by precipitation can lead to rehabilitation costs 10 times higher (compared to historical climate conditions); stress imposed by flooding can lead to a 17-fold increase.

It is therefore clear that the trillions of dollars needed to close Africa’s huge infrastructure gap are at risk from climate change and variability and need safeguarding.

In this regard, ECA (through its African Climate Policy Centre), the African Union Commission, the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have teamed up and launched the Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI–RES). The Facility is now operational, with initial seed funding from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF).

The amount of the initial seed funding from the Nordic Development Fund is EUR 5 million via a trust fund with the World Bank. The amount to be implemented by the ECA and AUC from this fund is still to be negotiated and agreed with the World Bank and NDF through a single project agreement with the World Bank Additional resource mobilisation is needed from donors such as France (AFD), Germany (BMZ), NDF, Italy, Netherlands, European Investment Bank, among others.

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Operational structure of AFRI–RES AFRI-RES will be implemented under four components: Project level technical assistance. World Bank Training, dissemination, advocacy and outreach. ECA + AUC Guidelines, standards and good practice notes. World Bank + AfDB Climate Knowledge Portal. ECA While the ECA/AUC and the World Bank provide the lead for implementation of the various components, it is expected that all partners will contribute to the delivery of all the components.

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Panel discussion points under the AFRI-RES framework may include: Integrating climate resilience in all PIDA projects Reporting on the economics of climate resilient infrastructure in Africa Establishing and implementing regional framework for climate resilient infrastructure Using tools and methods for climate resilient infrastructure for decision makers and practitioners Strengthening the capacity of African institutions and policy makers to plan, design, and implement infrastructure investments that are resilient to climate variability and change

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Africa Climate Resilience Summit - ACRIS IV • • •

Building a compendium of climate resilient infrastructure good practice in Africa Designing guidelines and standards for climate resilient infrastructure in Africa Building a knowledge base of existing capacity needs, data, information and services on implementing climate resilient infrastructure in Africa

Contacts Queries about ACRIS 2019 can be directed to Mr. Mohamed Ahmed mahmed@grvglobal.com Ethiopia Mobile: +251 96 794 2591 UK Mobile: +44 7876 324 418 ***

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