Managing Director, Anshula Kant. -Image Courtesy of The Economic Times
By Nesia Mhaka
The World Bank has continued tightening its partnership with the Government of Zimbabwe in strengthening the country’s capacity in integrating climate change considerations which will enhance sustainable development.
The World Bank is one of the institutions that work with Government in mobilising financial and technical support across many sectors, including the Climate Change department.
In this instance, The World Bank is assisting Zimbabwe in undertaking the project of full compilation of the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions updated report which seeks to achieve national climate goals and enhance sustainable development.
The Bank is taking up the project under consultation from Ricardo PLC, a global engineering and strategic, technical and environmental consultancy business.
The NDC enhancement project by the Bank will allow the country to take stock of recent economic developments, new national policies and strategies, emerging evidence from emissions modelling and investment analysis, as well as economic and technology trends.
The project will be delivered through the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP), with support from the World Bank’s NDC Support Facility and the Zimbabwe Reconstruction Fund (ZIMREF).
NDCs are a country’s commitment to mitigate climate change which should be achieved by 2030 under the Paris Agreement.
The agreement makes provision to track collective progress in making these mitigation contributions through the Transparency Framework, Compliance Framework and the Global Stock Take which will start from 2023 and every five years thereafter.
Speaking at the Zimbabwe NDC-update inception meeting last week, World Bank senior agriculture specialist Mr Nkulumo Zinyengere said that the updated report will assist the nation in communicating actions that will facilitate and effectively unlock financial investments.
He added that the revised NDC report seeks to assists the nation in co-ordinating green economic recovery efforts which are in line with national climate goals and climate-resilient strategies.
“Zimbabwe’s first NDC outlined a series of actions required for both adaptation and mitigation, and outlined a governance framework, monitoring and reporting steps, and support required information to facilitate implementation.
“It also emphasised that further collation and analysis of information on support for financial investment, capacity development and technology generation and transfer is required.
“This NDC enhancement provides an opportunity for Zimbabwe to be clearer in communicating adaptation and mitigation actions, outline a roadmap for their delivery, better reflect finance needs, and establish an institutional framework and Measurement, Reporting and Verification system to facilitate effective NDC implementation,” he said.
Mr Zinyengere added that the assignment will comprehensively highlight areas with adaptation and mitigation co-benefit into the updated report.
“As stated in the first-generation NDC, Zimbabwe’s economy is founded on sectors vulnerable to climatic change namely agriculture, forestry, energy, tourism, and industry among others. The agricultural sector which constitutes between 10 and 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is largely rain-fed and hence highly sensitive to climate change.
“Since 2010, Zimbabwe has been experiencing a slowdown in economic growth, with the growth rate sharply declining from 12 percent in 2011 to 1.5 percent in 2015. The decline is largely attributed to the under-performance of the agriculture sector, which at its peak contributed with 19 percent of the GDP.”
Speaking at the same event, Ricardo PLC project director, Dr Ryan Hogarth said that the project will be a roadmap in unlocking potential investments for mitigation and adaptation schemes.
“We will co-ordinate with UNEP/SEI, who are responsible for modelling the updated economy-wide on greenhouse gas emission trajectories in a business as usual and mitigation scenarios and assess the mitigation potential to 2030. Based on the results from this analysis, we will assess the scope for raising the ambition of Zimbabwe’s NDC target.
“The local and international mitigation experts will identify the specific mitigation projects that need to be implemented to meet the revised target.
“We will also extract data, where available from the analysis, on the investment costs of the projects. These cost estimates will be used to develop a high-level investment/financing plan for the prioritised projects, with consideration of Zimbabwe’s climate finance landscape,” he said.
He added that the updated NDC report will articulate an overarching arrangements and a financial and institutional framework for the implementation of economy-wide prioritised mitigation and adaptation projects, as well as a MRV framework.
Director of Climate Change Management Department under the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Mr Washington Zhakata said the country will continue to engage and collaborate with development partners in strengthening its competitiveness in promoting low carbon economy and green investments.
“Zimbabwe will remain focused in strengthening the establishment of a mitigation system that realises the opportunities of a low-carbon economy while being mindful that an inclusive and just transition requires time and well planned low-carbon and climate resilient development,” he said.
Mr Zhakata also said the World Bank is assisting the nation to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals, by aligning innovations techniques which will scale up the country’s NDCs.
“In 2016, the Government of Zimbabwe launched the NDC Implementation Framework which seeks to guide the execution of the current energy sector focused on NDCs. The implementation framework was supported by the World Bank.”
“This project aims to update Zimbabwe’s targets and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Zimbabwe’s first-generation NDC set a target of reducing energy emissions per capita by 33 percent by 2030 relative to a projected business-as-usual approach, conditional on international support.
