Water resources are critical to Africa’s development

Largest rooftop photovoltaic system set up in Latin America, see page 3.

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Water is central to many ofthe development activities inAfrica. Access to safe waterwill alleviate poverty andspur growth in some of thepoorest countries in theworld. The region encom-passes a wide variety of climatic zones, from the Sahara Desert to the rain-forests of the Congo Basin.The region’s economy andlivelihoods are very suscep-tible to climate variabilityand droughts, floods, andstorms undermine the pro-gress the region is making.For many African countries,climate change threatens toexacerbate the uncertaintyin planning for the future.NDF provides support to ad-dress some of the impactsand uncertainties includingthe new initiatives describedbelow.

African Water Facilitydraws enthusiastic response:The African Water Facility(AWF) has launched a callfor proposal, invitingAfrican organisations tosubmit proposals for thepreparation of water pro-jects and programmesaimed at building resilience

to climate change in Africa.When the call closed, AWFhad received a total of 234submissions. The call wasopen for all African coun-tries and applications werereceived from 31 countries.Kenya was well-representedas well as Tanzania andUganda, and a large shareof the applications coveredseveral countries. AWF is inthe process of reviewing theapplications. NDF is provid-ing EUR 6 million of theEUR 16 million that hasbeen allocated for the call.

Supporting resilience in West Africa coastal areas:NDF will assist four WestAfrican countries in streng-thening their regional andnational governance in im-proving their knowledgeabout coastal erosion, flood-ing and other climate changehazards that threaten thecoastlines. Côte d’Ivoire,Ghana, Togo and Benin havean interconnected coastaland marine environmentwhich forms diversifiedecosystems. The rapid popu-lation and economic growthalong the coast presentsboth an opportunity and a

challenge for the sustain-ability of coastal ecosystemsand manmade environments.The project is co-financedwith the World Bank andaims at strengthening theresilience of the private and the public sector to climate-related impacts, and at the same time it willserve as the first buildingblock of a future technicalassistance and investmentprogramme in the WestAfrica coastal area.

Climate-resilient watersector in Zambia: Despitegood progress in the pastdecade, there are still 5.2million people (over a thirdof the population) in Zambiawho do not have access tosafe water. Eight millionpeople (over half the popula-tion) do not have access toadequate sanitation andmore than 5,000 childrendie every year from diar-rhoea caused by unsafewater and poor sanitation in Zambia.NDF and the African

Development Bank will co-finance the second phase of the National Rural WaterSupply and Sanitation

Programme in WesternProvince. The NDF supportwill contribute to makingrural water and sanitationinstallations more climate-resilient. This entails assess-ment of local level waterresources management,flood control measures, de-forestation issues, weatherinformation and designstandards for water supplyand sanitation installations.NDF’s project will in-

clude capacity and tools development and field test-ing of climate-resilient approaches and methods in 80-100 communities inboth flood- and drought-prone rural communities toensure climate-resilience ofwater and sanitation infra-structure. The results willbe integrated into theplanned national water and sanitation strategy.

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The fifth call for proposalsof the Nordic Climate Facility(NCF) under the theme Climate resilience in urbanand private sector contextsattracted a total of 58 appli-cations from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The proposalsshow a strong focus onAsia, while many were also

TowardsCOP21

NCF fifth call well-received

by Nordic organisations

targeting countries in sub-Saharan Africa and NDF’spartner countries in centraland South America. Theshort-listed applicants willbe invited to submit theirfull proposals tentativelyby the end of March, afterthe applications have beenscored by the NCF evalua-tion team.

NCF has selected over 50climate projects for fundingin Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica since the financingscheme was established in 2009. The implementedprojects relate to mitigationof greenhouse gases aswell as to adaptation to theimpacts of climate change.

In December 2015, coun-tries will gather in Paris to finalise a new globalagreement to tackle climatechange. The Nordic Deve-lopment Fund will partici-pate in several events atCOP21, including TransportDay, Nationally AppropriateMitigation Actions (NAMA)Day, and Climate andHealth. At COP20 in Lima in

December 2014, the Eco-Micro programme, fundedtogether by the MultilateralInvestment Fund (MIF) of theInter-American DevelopmentBank and NDF, received theUN Momentum for ChangeLighthouse climate award.The awards ceremony washosted by the UN Secretary-General Dr Ban Ki-moon. Also at COP20 in Lima,

NDF contributed to a NAMAseminar organised jointlyby the Nordic Council ofMinisters and the Ministryof Natural Resources andEnvironment of Vietnam.NDF was also active atCOP20’s Transport Day,presenting our support totransport NAMA develop-ment and adaptation initia-tives in the transport sectorin Central America, Africaand South East Asia. Like-wise, NDF was one of the 14development financiers whojointly launched the newGeothermal DevelopmentFacility (GDF) for LatinAmerica at COP20.

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Transition towards low-carbon development

NDF financed a research project 2012 to 2014 on climate change adaptation and development challenges. Researchers from Nordic institutions used recent findings to highlight that the social dimensions of vulnerability and adaptation

Largest rooftop photo-voltaic (PV) system in Latin America: NDF andIDB support a USD 50 million Energy Efficiency Finance Facility offeringloans and guarantees socompanies can reduce theirenergy use or generatesome or all of their own energy from renewablesources. A technical assis-tance fund establishedunder the programme provides grants for energyefficiency audits, engineer-ing studies, and cost-bene-fit analyses to determine

what might be the most attractive green solutionsfor a particular company.One of the first clients tobenefit is a bottling plantin Honduras where a USD5 million loan from the facility will enable Corpo-ración Industrial del Norte,SA (Corinsa) to install PVsolar panels on the roofs of its industrial buildingsin San Pedro Sula. Theproject will - when com-pleted - be the largestrooftop PV system in Latin America.

Low-carbon development is apriority for NDF and severalnew initiatives support thistransition. NDF, along with13 other financing institu-tions, supports the new Geothermal DevelopmentFacility (GDF) for LatinAmerica. GDF will provide atleast USD 75 million ingrant-based risk mitigationinstruments and USD 1 billion in tailored finan-cing to geothermal projectsin a range of Latin Americancountries. The GDF seeks to incentivise at least 350 MWof geothermal generationcapacity, help to save 50 million tonnes of CO2 in totaland provide clean electricityto 2 million people. NDFcontributes to the GDF withthe existing regional geo-

thermal training facility in El Salvador. Together with the Inter-

American DevelopmentBank (IDB), NDF is co-financing a geothermaltraining programme in El Salvador which serves all of Latin America. The geothermal training facility is now inviting new students to a geother-mal training course in ElSalvador. The next course is to be given between Juneand November 2015 andscholarships are availablefor 10 local and 10 inter-national students. The dead-line for submitting appli-cations is 24 April 2015.More information can be found on www.ndf.fi

will need to move to the forefront of development policies and practices since climate change affects livesand livelihoods, infrastructureand institutions, as well as beliefs, cultures and identities. The research projectrecommends seeing adaptation

as a process, placing priority on better understanding of local context when preparingadaptation activities, use ofrights-based approaches, longertime perspectives in adaptationsupport, and include more social and process oriented indicators in M&E systems.

The results are found in a publication with the title: Climate Change Adaptationand Development: Transforming Paradigmsand Practices, Routledge 2015.

When business as usual is not enough

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FINANCING FOR CLIMATE CHANGEPROJECTS IN LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES

The Nordic Development Fund (NDF) provides financing for climate change interventions in low-income developing countries. NDF is the joint deve-lopment finance institution of the Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—and finances projects in cooperation with otherdevelopment institutions.

NORDIC DEVELOPMENT FUND, P.O. Box 185, FIN-00171 Helsinki, Finland (Visiting address: Fabianinkatu 34), Tel: +358 10 618 002, Fax: +358 9 622 1491, E-mail: info.ndf@ndf.fi, www.ndf.fi

Nordic Development Fund

NDF Newsletter presents NDF's operations. The newsletter is published as needed. Layout Kubik, print Erweko Oy.

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Climate change will haveimpacts on public health.Greater rates of heat stresswill result as heat waves become more common. Malnutrition will grow asextreme events like coastalflooding and drought affectfood production. Floodingwill also spread more water-and vector-borne diseases,with diarrhoeal illnessesand tropical fevers likely to spread. It is expected thatthese impacts will be great-est in regions where thepopulation is most dense,most vulnerable, and leastequipped to adapt. Often itwill be the poor and disen-franchised groups, women,and children that are mostat risk. NDF supports several

initiatives that seek to ad-

dress the linkages betweenclimate change and health.Through a new project withthe Asian Development Bank(ADB), NDF provides EUR 4million to strengthen thenational and regional ca-pacity of Cambodia, Laos,and Vietnam to cope withadverse health impacts ofclimate change. There is ev-idence that climate changehas a significant impact onhealth outcomes in develop-ing countries and theMekong is one of the mostvulnerable regions in theworld. In addition, extremeweather events cause in-juries, deaths and watercontamination. The projectwill contribute to povertyalleviation indirectly by re-ducing the vulnerability ofthe poor and disadvantaged

groups (women, childrenand minority ethnic groups)to climate change-induceddiseases. The expected im-provement in the benefici-aries’ health status willenhance their productivity.Although the main focus of the proposed project ison the health sector, theproject also seeks to estab-lish and reinforce linkageswith other sectors, such aswater and sanitation, agri-culture and environment. In sub-Saharan Africa,

NDF and the World Banksupport a regional projecton climate and healthwhich will in its pilot phasefocus on Mosambique. In Guatemala, in late

March 2015 there will be a two-day seminar andtechnical meeting between

health officials and climateexperts. The seminar willfocus on climate changeand health risks to identifypolicy options and institu-tional responses. The seminarforms part of the NDF-Inter-American Develop-ment Bank’s (IDB) Eco-nomics of Climate ChangeProject for Central Americaimplemented by the Eco-nomic Commission forLatin America and theCaribbean (ECLAC). Through these different

projects, NDF seeks tocatalyse exchange betweeninstitutions and continentson the important topic ofclimate change and healthimpacts.

Climate change and health

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