SPOTLIGHT
What is needed is a transformation of development finance.
Abdulhamid Alkhalifa, OPEC Fund Director-General
The closing conversation focused on climate change, gender inequality and youth empowerment
platform with up to US$250 million in financing until 2030 for renewable energy solutions in its partner countries. The closing panel stressed the urgent need to empower women, youth and the “Global South”. Nawal Al-Hosany, Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to IRENA, said: “Not only do we need a roadmap for our transformation, but it also has to be a roadmap for everybody with no one left behind.” There is no shortage of challenges the world is facing: Climate change, food insecurity, sluggish and uneven economic growth, armed conflict, severe backsliding in the delivery of the 2030 Sustainability Agenda, where according to the UN only 15 percent of goals are currently on target, and many more. The Director of the United Nations Office for South- South Cooperation, Dima Al-Khatib, summed it up: “Yes it is true, we are facing a polycrisis.” However, the OPEC Fund Development Forum succeeded in fostering readiness to act and inspired a sense of optimism that by joining forces the international community will be able to rise to the challenge. Ms. Cheikhrouhou said about the new President of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, who assumed his post at the beginning of June 2022: “He wants us to think big.” Veronica Scotti, Chairperson Public Sector Solutions at the insurance company Swiss Re, captured this spirit with the words: “It can be done.”
discussed the institution’s approach to the most urgent challenges and said: “Climate finance is development finance.” She presented the Climate Finance and Energy Innovation Hub as an example of how the OPEC Fund is successfully deploying its leverage to mobilize finance from external partners. Suzanne Gaboury, who heads up Private Sector Operations at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said that her institution plans to raise its level of climate financing to US$100 billion by 2030. “The recently launched Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific is a new and innovative approach to provide new financing by leveraging donor countries’ contributions.” The OPEC Fund and ADB signed a technical assistance grant at the sidelines of the Development Forum. Additionally, a Memorandum of Understanding between the OPEC Fund and the United Nations World Food Programme will create the framework for a joint food security initiative that is currently under development. The OPEC Fund also signed a US$20 million loan to Access Bank Botswana for on-lending to local micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with a focus on women entrepreneurs. Finally, the OPEC Fund agreed with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to join the Energy Transition Accelerator Financing (ETAF) platform, a global initiative to mobilize funds for renewables. The OPEC Fund plans to support the
Musonda Chishimba Musakany, Access Bank Botswana, Acting Managing Director, and OPEC Fund Director-General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa
Dima Al-Khatib, United Nations Office for South- South Cooperation, Director, and (below) the conference in session
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