Financing Climate Change Adaptation in Transboundary Basins

25 Financing Climate Change Adaptation in Transboundary Basins andenergy.Otherpotential investments include “climate smart” supply chainanalytics software, drought-tolerant tree crops, coastal protection, and disaster recovery. The fund will provide private investors the opportunity to invest in a climate change fund that exclusively focuses on resilience-related companies. Transboundary RBOs can facilitate resource mobilization from a variety of international financing institutions by providing a coordination and compilation service. For some international financiers and multilateral develop- ment banks (MDBs), small projects are less attractive because of high administrative costs. At the same time, a series of smaller projects is often necessary to address critical resilience building or adaptation needs. RBOs can compile multiple smaller projects within a larger project proposal or programmatic approach that are then more attractive to international financiers because of the larger financing amount. In addition, the coordi- nation and management role played by the RBO in implementation and the reduced administrative burden for the financier makes such an approach attractive. (See box 2.7.) Investor roundtables can be organized to present such proposals to a group of financiers. BOX 2.7. Case Study: Climate Resilience Investment Project for the Niger River Basin Implementing partners: World Bank, AfDB, bilateral agencies, Niger Basin Authority, national governments Description The Niger Basin is home to more than 112 million people throughout the nine countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. The Niger River and its tributaries are a vital lifeline providing drinking water, irrigation, aquaculture, energy, and transport to these nine riparian countries. Heavy reliance on natural resources, combined with ongoing conflicts and political instability, make it one of the most fragile river basins in Africa. Over 70 percent of the population lives in areas where food security depends on unreliable rainfall and highly variable interannual and intra-annual river flows. Climate variability has long been a challenge and an obstacle for development in the basin. The Niger Basin countries recognize that the shared nature of their water resources presents an opportunity for a collaboration and coordination that will derive greater resilience building outcomes. The Investment Plan for the Strengthening of Resilience to Climate Change was prepared and will be implemented by the Niger riparian countries and the Niger Basin Authority (NBA), one of the oldest African intergovernmental agencies, created in 1964 in Niamey, Niger. The Plan includes 246 actions divided in two packages that focus knowledge management and sectoral investments, including measures targeting vulnerability to water stress, variability, soil, land, and ecosystem degradation, and strengthening resilience. Actions were culled from the NBA’s Operational Plan, member countries’ NAPAs and NAPs, as well as country proposals. This comprehensive basin approach to address development and resilience is widely considered a good practice, but rarely implemented in developing countries due to the urgency of many competing development needs as well as resource and capacity constraints. Full implementation of the Plan is estimated to cost US$3.11 billion. The Plan will mobilize funding from a wide array of sources, including regional and multilateral partners, such as the NBA member countries, the AfDB, and the World Bank, as well as private financing. All financing for the investment plan is aligned and consistent with existing plans at the regional and national levels.