African policymakers and climate experts have called for greater African control over climate transition financing, warning that funding arrangements could deepen debt and reinforce existing inequalities unless communities help determine how resources are allocated.
Speaking at an Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) event at COP31 in Antalya, panellists urged negotiators to make affordable energy, local ownership and accountability central to the design of the Belém Action Mechanism on just transition.
The discussion at the Africa Pavilion focused on two questions: who will pay for Africa’s transition, and who will decide its priorities?
“Africa contributes less than 4 per cent of global emissions, yet it carries some of the heaviest climate costs,” said Mekalia Aklilu, ECA research officer for energy systems, financing and just transitions.
She said sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 86 per cent of the world’s population without electricity, compared with 49 per cent in 2010, underscoring the need to connect climate policy with basic development needs.
“For a woman running a small food business where the power cuts out daily, a just transition is not a mechanism,” she said. “It is a reliable connection, at a price she can pay, with a say in how it reaches her.”
Figures presented at the event put Africa’s annual climate financing needs at approximately US$277 billion, with only about 11 per cent currently met. Speakers said the continent receives just US$3 to US$4 of every US$100 in global climate finance.
They argued that financing terms are as important as the amount available, particularly when governments must borrow to respond to climate impacts.
According to figures cited during the discussion, private creditors hold 42 per cent of Africa’s external debt on market terms.
“Africa faces a double penalty,” said Fatima Denton, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics who moderated the session. “The costs of climate change are transferred to the continent, and now it must borrow to find its feet.”
Aklilu said climate finance must be predictable, adequate and accessible without increasing debt burdens.
Wanjira Mathai, managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute, warned that the meaning of a just transition would remain unclear unless vulnerable communities helped define it.
“You cannot transition from energy access you do not have,” she said, calling for decision-making authority and finance to move closer to communities.
“Decisions made far from communities inevitably cost more and are often wrong.”
Jean-Paul Adam, director of policy, monitoring and advocacy at the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, said the continent needed economic transformation rather than a narrow shift in energy systems.
“Our economic model is rooted in raw materials produced for use elsewhere,” he said. “Equity requires value addition — in communities, as Agenda 2063 sets out.”
Speakers highlighted examples of locally accessible financing and oversight. These included a debt-for-climate swap in Seychelles that channelled proceeds into a trust fund accessible to community organisations, commune-level accounts in Burkina Faso and parish-level climate committees in Uganda.
The least developed country-led LIFE-AR initiative aims to mobilise approximately US$800 million by 2030, with 70 per cent reaching the local level, according to information presented at the event.
Errol Andile Mlambo, a commissioner at South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission, said the country’s Just Energy Transition Partnership had demonstrated the importance of matching finance to clearly identified needs.
He said South Africa tracks grant, concessional and commercial financing, while acknowledging that early eligibility criteria had excluded small businesses and farmers.
Consultation must become meaningful participation, he added, with workers and the informal sector included in decisions.
Masego Madzwamuse, managing director of Quadrature Climate Foundation, said philanthropy could help address financing inequalities by supporting African-led institutions working closely with affected communities.
“Funding built on anything less than trust risks entrenching the very inequities it seeks to solve,” she said.
Carina Bachofen of the International Institute for Environment and Development called for accountability on both sides: funders should clearly disclose available resources, while recipient countries should explain how they will use them and demonstrate results.
Cosmas Ochieng, director of ECA’s Climate Change, Food Security and Natural Resources Division, said the commission would convene a post-COP31 review in mid-December.
A further meeting planned for March will bring together African finance, economic planning and environment ministers, global climate funds and development banks to address gaps in transition planning, financing and equity before COP32.
“What counts is not what is pledged, but what is delivered afterwards,” Aklilu said. “Equity is the purpose, finance is the means, and accountability is the test.”
