Abidjan: The African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a grant of $4.23 million to implement the second phase of a project aimed at integrating natural capital into development financing across thirteen African countries. According to African Press Organization, the project will span Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The initiative will receive in-kind contributions from partner institutions such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the German public agency for international cooperation on sustainable development (GIZ), the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa's Development, the Economic Commission for Africa, and the United Nations Environment Programme. The project's implementation is set between October 2026 and September 2029, aiming to generate outputs in policy, statistics, institutio ns, and knowledge. These outputs are designed to enhance the integration of natural capital into development planning, addressing the need for comprehensive policy-making systems, statistical systems, institutional frameworks, and knowledge-generation mechanisms. The strategy includes a series of integrated measures such as policy support, technical assistance, statistical readiness assessments, biodiversity financing tools, pilot projects, capacity building, and peer learning. These measures are expected to enable African countries to better identify, measure, and manage their natural wealth, thereby strengthening the evidence base that informs development financing and policy-making. Innocent Onah, Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank Group, stated that the project is intended to contribute to development that is resilient to climate change, nature-friendly, and inclusive. In the long term, it is anticipated to lead to tangible improvements in GDP growth, increased foreign direc t investment, economic development, poverty reduction, improved employment, economic competitiveness, and enhanced financial and economic risk ratings in the target countries.
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